He violated one of the cardinal rules, know your backstop, with tragic results.

Update: 7:00pm EST.

And AGAIN, like I said, KNOW YOUR BACKSTOP!  (And note the fine print, “Alcohol was involved in the incident…”)   This time with a surprise something-good-came-out-of-it twist.

Football is an American art form, like opera for Italians. As with so many other areas of American life, its beauty is unplanned and emerges from vicious competition for total victory. But with a underlying recognition that business is just business, after all.

Appears to be lost on too many people.

That appears to include LDS people. I can’t think why else they give the Family Services talk once a year to all the parents in my unit.

It is indubitably an unwise course of action to trifle with your wife’s assertions of fact. Fortunately, in this case, there appears to have been no lasting damage to wife or writing implement, but other cases have eventuated a more tragic outcome.

There is also a lesson here for the young master or mistress who is tempted to interrogate his or her own tonsils with nothing more suitable than a household mirror and a felt pen. If you must, then by all means maintain equilibrium whilst doing so.

Chanukah begins at sunset tonight. Our best wishes to any Jewish readers for a Happy Chanukah.    (more…)

Dr. Jodi Smith’s profile is up at Mormon.org. Dr. Jodi Smith is one of those people who make you believe that calling us Saints might mean something. She gave us a few more years with Betsey Pearl in a very difficult and delicate operation around Betsey’s brainstem and she spent some of the very little free time she had comforting us and praying with us. Like most of us, she probably knows herself too closely to think of herself as a saint and would believe that I’m overpraising her. But I believe that in God’s eyes, who we are when we are at our best is probably who we really are. We are grateful to have known Dr. Smith. May she continue to improve the lives of these little ones.

Our Bishop pointed out to us that modern tithing settlement doesn’t have much of a practical purpose. Back in the day, dropping off some fraction of a beef cow in a tithing envelope every Sunday was impractical, so you needed some settling up where you brought in two steers and a heifer, and the Bishop gave you back a lamb and a few bales of hay to make it all square. Tithing settlement is a boost for the Bishop since he gets to interact with his non-”problem” members, but that’s about it. Instead, tithing settlement has–dare we say it?–a liturgical value. (more…)

I can’t vouch for the quality of it, but apparently there is a body of evidence that families with sons are less likely to divorce. (more…)

The Jesus character in this Saturday Night Live skit tells the Tim Tebow character that Mormonism is true.

(Hat tip to Eric Nielson of Small and Simple.) (more…)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2074994/Plans-floating-city-California-coast-house-entrepreneurs-visas.html

In a previous life, I spent part of a year in college on an ocean-going tanker.  It does take a couple weeks to get your sea-legs, and not everyone can adapt.

But this is a very creative solution to the problem of high-tech entrepreneurs not being able to get the necessary types of visas.

It also illustrates that the United States culture/families/education system is not creating sufficient home-grown talent.

Here’s a fairly comprehensive statistical look at the Saints in America. (more…)

I don’t know if it’s possible to believe same-sex attraction is disordered, and homosexual relations sinful, and not be considered homophobic, even if you strive to separate the temptation from the person. That does seem to be the razor’s edge the Church has walked of late, and I’m trying to do the same.

So does my gut reaction to the following image show I still have a long ways to go? (Warning: Your eyes may run screaming from their sockets.)      (more…)

I reckon there’s a lick to the loco. Yee-haw!

Some anti-Mormons are anti-Mormon innocently. They do not sin in their anti-Mormonism. They only err. (more…)

The Post Office is cancelling next-day mail. The USPS is getting dragged down by unions, inefficiency, and most of all, by email and texting. It may even go under. (more…)