Simple Utah Mormon Politics

It is beyond me how anyone, after a detailed review, could think Barack Obama qualified to become president of the United States (I used to before my own detailed review). His campaign has been a perpetual Beatles concert, with not only the girls swooning. Will anyone notice that his stance on Iraq has evolved to be just like the other Establishment candidates? With Barack Obama, we've known for a long time that What You See Is NOT What You Get. It's still not too late to admit that Ron Paul is/was the best candidate for President of the United States in 2008. Several of you chose Barack Obama as your candidate primarily because of his far different stance from John McCain regarding the Iraq war and occupation. Only one presidential candidate has been consistent on his opposition to the Iraq War--Ron Paul. Barack Obama, the closer he gets to the nomination, the more he aligns the orbit of his earth with the Establishment's sun. Hillary Clinton supports it. For a long t...

About a month ago, Utah Governor John Huntsman announced that state executive branch employees would begin working four-day work weeks with ten-hour days. The decree is set to go into effect on August 4th. Are we ready for it? Do you think it will work? A BYU study says it will. The subject of the BYU study says it doesn't. It would certainly save me a lot on my gasoline bill. For a long time I've wanted to work a four-day work week. Imagine how much more I could get done with a longer weekend, I told myself. But we were recently told by our employer that four-day work weeks were not going to be anywhere on our horizon, despite the fact that BYU had just completed a very rosy study about the effectiveness of four-day work weeks. The report, authored by Rex Facer, assistant professor of public finance and management, and Lori Wadsworth, assistant professor of public management, revealed that working four 10-hour days may actually lead to less conflict at home and result ...

A not-so-new yarn is going (again?) around the internet these days that the George W. Bush Administration has presided over a lot fewer military deaths than did the Clinton Administration. After noticing some suspiciously strange numbers in an e-mail I received, a bit of sleuthing led me to discover that the claim is patently untrue. The e-mail I just received (who knows how many in-boxes it's been through by now) begins thusly WE ALL AGREE THAT ONE CASUALTY IS ONE TOO MANY, BUT WAR IS HELL. THERE ARE WINNERS, CASUALTIES ARE NOT LOSERS. CAREFULLY LOOK OVER THE STATISTICS AND THEN YOU WILL REALIZE THE INCREDIBLE SKILL AND STRATEGIES OF OUR CURRENT MILITARY THAT KEEPS THEM SAFE. RECENT SPIN FROM THE MEDIA AND SOME OF THE CANDIDATES IS OBVIOUSLY IN DIRECT CONFLICT WITH THESE FACTS. A bit further into the document, we read: Military Losses, 1980 thru 2007 Whatever your politics, however you lean, and however you feel about the current administration, this report should open some eyes...

The United States are becoming "Untied". The worst financial mistake we ever made was to create the Federal Reserve. In 1933, when the US went off the Gold Standard, it became only a matter of time before the center could no longer hold . I'm surprised it's lasted this long. But let's unmask the culprits and get it over with--because I would like my 401K to be worth something when I retire in 20 years. Have you looked at your 401K lately? Mine sucks. I'm making a much higher salary than my employer projected, and I'm putting in 4 percentage points more of my own money than my employer projected, but right now, I'm about $25,000 off the pace of my employer's meager projection for my We have become a mega-empire identified as much by gigantic economic bailouts as by military imperialism. We have become a welfare state that prizes moral hazard above all else. Somehow in the midst of all this, we think we can tax ourselves more to pay for more hea...

John F. Kennedy was a thinker. He understood the world around him with great clarity. He surrounded himself with associates who were usually at least his intellectual equal. Not so George W. Bush. Bush doesn't think much compared to other US presidents. He looks with disdain on the rest of the world. And he wouldn't know intellectual stimulation if it bit him. One of the greatest mistakes of Ronald Reagan's presidency was to bow to his handlers, who suggested that George H. W. Bush would be a good vice president. A man eminently more qualified to be president than his son, he nonetheless was not the best presidential material of his time, and worse, his presidency likely paved the way for A much greater qualification for public office than one's political viewpoints is a healthy and diverse understanding of the world around us, as well as a respect for others' opinions. In this regard and many others, John F Kennedy runs rings around George W. Bush. something...

Those of a more liberal persuasion opine that we must take care of the less fortunate in our society through means of government wealth redistribution. Conservative types claim that anyone can get rich if they work hard enough, but that the rich are getting richer exclusively because they provide more value to society than the poor. Both sentiments, although based on veneers of truth, are largely inaccurate. Nevertheless, a widening divide between the wealth of rich and poor portends societal breakdown, and something must be done about it--on the part of government and private interests. Many on the American political Left lionize Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although I think he was a very dignified and well-meaning man, his policies have been the impetus for a great deal of the societal malaise that America is experiencing today. True capitalism must be mixed with charity, but when the rich get richer at the expense of the poor that's as uncharitable as it gets. Roosevelt's ma...

Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett voted yesterday to make it legal for the government to listen in on and store data from your phone conversations anytime they want to, for no reason, and without a search warrant. What has this country come to? In the earlier days of the Republic, such actions would have been seen by everyone--not to mention their elected leaders--as a crime. So, for the record, I think that Hatch and Bennett are political criminals. I hope you will now agree that if you ever vote to send them back to the Senate again, you will be an accessory to their crime. Utah Mormons: you know that Constitution hanging by a thread thingy that you talk about in church all the time? With the vote of 69 Senators yesterday (most of them Republican), we no longer have a Fourth Amendment. Hatch and Bennett led the cheerleading and the voting. Your two senators just took a box cutter to it yesterday, and it's just about to break. The fourth amendment to the Constitution is ver...

In the past few weeks, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning blaming various types of tomatoes, which have allegedly caused approximately 990 illnesses and 1 death. As of now, the FDA has not found one tomato culprit. Yet their warning has caused a drastic loss to the tomato farming industry. Have you been to a restaurant lately and tried to get tomatoes as a part of your meal? Some eateries simply won't provide you tomatoes. Others say that you must ask for them specifically. It's because the media-abetted FDA is trying, with an unproven theory, to scare the crap out of everyone. This was the original warning given out by the FDA to Americans everywhere: FDA has issued a warning to consumers nationwide that an outbreak of Salmonella serotype Saintpaul, an uncommon type of Salmonella , has been linked to co...

Reports coming out of Iraq say that not only is al Qaeda on its heels there, but that it can no longer even mount an attack. I wonder, then, why the Bush Administration is not planning on bringing the troops home anytime soon, especially because he is predicting a large-scale attack on America for sometime in 2009. Nouri al Maliki wants the US to begin preparations for departure, but the United States is sure that he didn't really mean it. al Qaeda has been completely destroyed in Iraq. At least that's the news coming from foreign news sources there. Marie Colvin of the Times of London had an answer Sunday: "American and Iraqi forces are driving al Qaida in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror." It looks like the Democrats understand the situation better than the Republicans by a country mile. But let's go with this "we-kicked-al-Qaeda's-butt" the...

Many of those who say that abstinence education doesn't work advocate the use of safe sex measures such as condoms because, supposedly, "they're going to do it anyway." Wrong. Besides the fact that children aren't mature enough to know how unsafe the results of sexuality can be, the worst and unavoidable fruits of "they're going to do it anyway" are poverty and the illicit sanctioning of predatory sex and sexual abuse. Parents and other role-models should know that their example can enforce the importance of abstinence before marriage and fidelity thereafter, and that that reality makes for a much more healthy society. The family is Of course abstinence education won't work if we, as a result our politically pre-conceived notions, don't want it to. Of course it will fail if parents and other should-be role models teach their children to behave like dogs!! the fundamental unit of society. When children are taught that sex is a recreational...

Pressure is mounting from the Bush White House for a military strike against Iran. Covert operations have been going on in Iran for the last year or so. Is Bush crazy enough to launch an attack before he leaves office? I'm afraid so, but I hope I'm wrong. According to Seymour Hirsch in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine, SecDef Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” the Bush Administration is on the warpath against Iran . Leadership in Congress is complicit in the happenings as well, though. Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described...

As I trekked with members of my family and my LDS Ward at Martin's Cove and other LDS Church historic sites last weekend, I came to realize why the Church is publicizing the events that occurred in those sacred places in 1856. It's (among many other things) to inspire me to become a better husband and father. Yesterday I visited with Greg Allen on his radio program The Right Balance about an epiphany that I had recently as I walked along a dusty old Mormon trail in Wyoming. The Martin and Willie Handcart Companies left Iowa City very late in the year of 1856 on their trek to join other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Salt Lake City. What transpired on their way west can be looked at from one of two perspectives: (1) as the result of a completely illogical and very dumb decision, or (2) as one of the most poignant examples of sacrifice, courage, and heroism that the world has ever known. On October 16, 1856, the weather was What transpired can be...