Simple Utah Mormon Politics

I had several Republican friends who were ecstatic 8 years ago at supporting a George W. Bush presidential campaign. I don't hold out too much hope that they in retrospect consider it the most embarrassing vote(s) of their political lives. Most Utahns seem to be content to be spoon fed their politics, and most of you wouldn't know a statesman/stateswoman if you had a one-hour conversation with them. Years ago, as part of my Information Systems major at BYU, I accepted a one-semester internship at the LDS Church Office Building. To save gas and stress, I became a part of a 15-person van pool from Provo to Salt Lake. I remember on one occasion several of It's time to throw all of the rascals out, and not just half of them every few years. If you don't get rid of all the cockroaches, they will be back . the people in the van discussing how in LDS priesthood meetings over the years they had come to the consensus that to be a good member of the Church you had to be a R...

James Hansen, of "The Sky is Burning" fame, stated recently that we have essentially reached the point of no return in the "man-caused climate change" debate. Meanwhile, after surveying the evidence, most Britons have decided that Hansen must be making a lot of money from the Al Gore Climate Change Campaign. The sky is falling...I think. Hansen's opinion is that those in big energy should be thrown in prison. I give as my counter-opinion that Hansen and Al Gore should be thrown in prison for trying to scare the crap out of people with unfactual "facts". At any rate, according to James Hansen, we have reached the point of no return, with nothing to show for it, but if we go any farther, it could get really, really, bad, instead of just really bad. In testimony before congress Monday Dr. Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and who advises Al Gore on the environment, testified once again to the existence and dangers of glo...

I don't think Chris Cannon has done a terrible job in Congress over the last umpteen years, but I do think he hasn't done a great job either, which is why I will be voting for Jason Chaffetz to replace him. In recent newspaper interviews, Cannon gave as the most important reason to vote for him is that he understands how to deal with the Washington power structure. In other words, he knows how to play the game. For me, and for Jason Chaffetz, this is no game. Its our security, our liberty, and our money that Chris Cannon has helped to play fast and loose with for over a decade. Here are a few other things I like about Chaffetz. Federalism : He believes that local government is generally better, that the Federal Chris Cannon says he knows how to play the Washington game. For me, this is no game. Its our security, our liberty, and our money that Cannon has helped to play fast and loose with for over a decade. Government has broken far away from its Constitutional moorings, and...

My wife took a couple of our kids to the track and field events of the Utah Summer Games last year. She couldn't get away this year, so I volunteered to take the kids, and, on somewhat of a dare, I registered for and competed in 3 events. So I figured that if I was going to not look ridiculous, I'd better start training. It was my son Jacob's first time jumping over a hurdle, let alone competing in a hurdling event, and he was very nervous. It turns out, though, that he's something of a natural in the An Olympian I'll never be, but I'm well on my way to being much more fit than I've been in about 2 decades. hurdles, winning the silver medal in his race. He has as one of his goals now to be a hurdler extraordinaire. When faced with attempting new things, he has a lot more courage than I do. The rest of us, including son Cache and daughter Mauriana, competed in the mid-distance events. Without visiting with each other, we all happened to sign up for the s...

Perhaps more important questions than "who are you going to vote for as Utah treasurer" are these: (1) Have the latest allegations of impropriety against Walker affected your decision as to who to vote for on June 24th? (2) Was Lt. Governor Herbert's decision--to delay his findings about the allegations until after the primary election--the correct one? It's hard to say what actually happened in a recent meeting between Mark Walker and Richard Ellis, Republican candidates for Utah state treasurer. Ellis recently alleged that Walker offered to increase his salary by 53% if he dropped out of the race. Walker It appears that Herbert has come to a conclusion on what happened. He should share it--before the primary election. said he didn't. That part doesn't bug me so much as this: Utah Lt. Governor Gary Herbert, whose job it is to investigate and report on such issues, has stated that he doesn't want to release his findings until after the primary. That...

It's only 71 days away--you can get the environmental edition of the ever-popular Monopoly Board game. Are you going to get your copy? I think I probably will. Monopoly has been one of my favorite board games ever. I have the original edition, the German edition, and the U.S. Army edition. The new "World" edition sounds like a pretty cool idea--as long as I don't have to become a part of the European Union. ;-) Grist has this to say about the soon-to-be released game: "Refuse to play Monopoly because you fear Electric Company sources its power from coal? Fear not! Game-maker Hasbro is updating everyone's favorite interminable game, and in the Here and Now: World Edition, Water Works and Electric Company will be replaced with Wind Energy and Solar Energy." Amazon.com adds that Streets will be replaced by cities around the globe, chosen earlier this year by fans on Monopoly's website. So while you may be skeptical about the lessons your child is ...

It indicates that your government is lying to you. It also indicates that Americans ought to quit electing shysters to government--because the reasons that most Muslims have for hating our government are mostly good reasons. Update 6/17/2008 : The addition of a quotation that supports my claim that the Bush Administration cast al Qaeda and radical Islam as capable of taking over the world. The Prophecy. George Orwell was prescient when he wrote the book 1984 , the principles of which have been part of American foreign policy for at least the last 50 years. A main theme of the book regards how government maintains power by Most Muslims do not harbor animosity for the American people. We must, therefore, start electing people who don't hate Muslims. keeping the people in a state of perpetual siege by conjuring up enemies that don't really exist. When the Communist "juggernaut" was suppressed, the American Establishment had to find a new bogey man, for which--to the...

The 2005 book, Devil's Game , by Robert Dreyfuss, offers up the hypothesis that Hamas is a tool of the Israeli secret service. Hamas is constantly fighting with Fatah (the main component of the PLO--for examples click here and click here ), and that in and of itself is not good for the Palestinian peace process. But is it really possible that Hamas is Israel's token to help ensure that peace never comes to Palestine? In 1983, a Palestinian Arab named Ahmed Yassin was arrested by the Israelis for coordinating the stockpiling of firearms, some of which were found in his home. He was sentenced to 13 years in Members of the Israeli governing elite now look back on the creation of Hamas as a huge mistake. Oh well, the West is used to opening Pandora's boxes all over the Middle East. What's one more? prison, but released after only a year--fueling claims that he was secretly in alliance with the Israeli Shin Bet organization. In 1986 and 1987, Yassin organized the foun...

In so many cases in American history, if we'd just mind our own beeswax like George Washington counseled us, we'd be so much better off today. In perhaps no other case is this axiom more true than with regard to Iran. Our involvement in Iranian political affairs beginning in the early 1950's has caused chickens the size of vultures to come home to roost. By 1951, Iranians had had a gutful of the British hegemon whose state petroleum company had expropriated a significant portion of Iran's oil revenues. After the assassination of General Ali Razmara, Mohammed Mossadegh, an elected member of Iranian Parliament, having (by his intent to nationalize Iranian oil) largely created and become popularized by the wave of anti-western nationalism, was appointed as the new prime minister by the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Mossadegh's nationalistic rise to power marked him as a hated target of the West. A CIA- and MI6-sponsored coup caused the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953...

If it seems like an otherwise intelligent person or group of people continue to advocate stupid positions--rest assured it was planned that way. First of all, it doesn't make sense that the US would extend its military power into other countries (in search of terrorists to destroy), running up trillions of dollars in debt, without providing sufficient protection of its own borders. Similarly, it doesn't stand to reason that American leaders would thwart our ability to maintain our standard of living on specious environmental grounds, especially when man-caused global warming has not been proven. Unless... Chances are, if you are a part of the Establishment (or an Establishment wannabe), you support (1) draconian environmental regulations to combat man-made global warming, and/or (2) draconian injections of American military power into the affairs of other countries. If America will solve its problems when America actually faces its problems-- the real ones . Not the unlikelihoo...

My original title for this post was to have been "Robert Kent Van Dyke Should Get 30 Years in Prison". But with our current penal system--which allows most convicts to do nothing more than marinate in their own juices for the duration of their sentences--that's perhaps too convenient a solution. What should Van Dyke's punishment be for a seventh DUI conviction? And what kind of society would allow such a thing to happen in the first place? I was incensed when I read a couple of days ago that Robert Van Dyke's attorney was asking the judge to overturn the jury verdict finding Van Dyke guilty of a seventh DUI conviction, especially after he served 5 years for a prior automobile There is nothing that enrages me more than to see how lenient courts seem to be with drunk drivers, except for stupid lawyers who seem to have nothing better to do than wasting more of your tax dollars by dragging court cases into eternity. homicide conviction--probably while under the i...