I’ll second the nomination.

Justice requires social reform as well as economic reform. Individuals cannot flourish, indeed they cannot hope to survive in any meaningful way, apart from the rich lattice of relationships, families, and associations commonly known as civil society. This is a realm that exists apart from the state and independent of its authority. Here, in families and churches, schools and clubs, individuals make something of their lives and truly exercise their capacity to govern.

Yet government has been consuming civil society for years. Like their leftist counterparts around the world, American liberals distrust the social sector as moralistic, unequal, and hidebound. The “little platoons” of family and neighborhood too often stand in the way of making citizens truly equal. Churches and local communities too often impose obligations on individuals that keep them from pursuing happiness. Consequently, since the early part of the last century, Progressives have sought to replace society with government by absorbing the social sector’s teeming variety of voluntary associations into the state.

Thus Joshua D. Hawley

Lets you sue the estate of someone who negligently gets himself hit by a train if one of his flying body parts strikes and injures you.

I am not making this up.

And I’m not saying this is wrong; I don’t know how else the judge could have ruled. I’ts just that it’s exceedingly weird. And tragic.

A prospective groom should already know the answer before he asks the question in public.

Of course, asking the question just before being fed to hungry monsters has its own perils and advantages.

“Some adolescent girls who get the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer wrongly think they no longer need to practice safe sex, U.S. researchers said on Monday.”

According to a recently received email:     (more…)

I doff my helmet in admiration of Judge William Mahon.

And that’s no (more…)

So long as other countries strive to match our stupid.

McDonald’s coffee, homemade churros, same difference.

His Majesty: “Yet another case of making a tort out of a torte.”

The term “intellectual” is one frequently found in descriptions of political groupings and presumably refers to writers, artists, poets, philosophers, and other idlers whose influence is considerably greater than their numbers or contribution would warrant.

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Why are the press so in love with the word “alleged”?

And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain…   

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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.

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…)

Sung in Klingonese.

It warms my heart to see members rising to meet the 1977 challenge by President Kimball to Mormon artists in this manner.

I have long believed that most of the best Mormon music of the last fifty years was written for Primary children. While there has been some outstanding adult music, like Mack Wilberg’s arrangement of Come Thou Font of Every Blessing, it has tended to either be derivative or to not be performed nearly as much as it deserves (or both in Wilberg’s case.) However, “I am a child of God” has never been one of my favorites. Which leaves me pondering: Is it still kitsch if it’s translated to Klingonese?

Well, you probably already believed that. But you may be surprised to learn that you may be a war criminal, too.

The ICRC forfeited my goodwill and respect some time ago, but this certainly does not help.

I think chess is probably still okay with the ICRC, since pieces are humanely captured rather than cruelly killed. I suppose it depends on whether captive pieces receive the same pay and rations as your own pieces, whether pawns are compelled to do military work, and whether non-pawns are exempt from being compelled to work.