Simple Utah Mormon Politics

The British press kept it a secret for almost three months.Give the American media whores one day, and everyone in the world knows it. The American press ought to be embarrassed that it spread like wildfire the leak about Prince Harry’s military whereabouts—but they’re not embarrassed, because they know you want it. I was listening to the Doug Wright show on KSL radio from Salt Lake City yesterday, and he was veritably salivating over the fact that British Prince Harry’s specific whereabouts in Afghanistan have been revealed, making him a security risk for the British military there. Harry was not allowed by the British crown to serve in Iraq for the very reason that the specifics of his service would be divulged to the world. Then it was agreed by the British press that—for operational security—it would not be revealed that Prince Harry was actually in Afghanistan. The Brits kept their end of the bargain. It was a foreign source—perhaps Australian, but begun in the US very likely b...

Whenever I see that a new splotch of graffiti has shown up in a public place, I find myself hoping that somebody will hurry and clean it up so that the graffiti problem doesn’t get worse. But that somebody has as of yet never been me. Now I’m noticing that graffiti is showing up a lot more in areas that I frequent. It’s not getting cleaned up in an appropriate amount of time. And it’s getting more vulgar. Is graffiti okay? Some people think so. I think so as long as it is privately sponsored and controlled. But not when it’s not legal or privately allowed. The graffiti that I’m starting to see crop up everywhere is definitely not being encouraged or allowed—on the side of train cars, on overpasses, and on vacant buildings. To make matters worse, now there are web sites that show the kinds of graffiti defacement that has occurred. Whoever is posting such images on these web sites may think they’re providing a public service, but actually, there’s no better encouragement—even fo...

While the earth seemed to be getting really, really warm, and while the Arctic ice seemed to be getting really, really thin, the major media outlets were all over themselves and us, trumpeting the need for global governance for what seemed surely like a global problem. Where are they now that the indicators have significantly reversed themselves and a flock of crows stands at the ready to be eaten? I can tell when someone cares about honesty based on whether they care to report about both sides of an issue. Based on that factor, man-made global warming enthusiasts are largely snake-oil salesmen. I haven't written about Global Warming much lately, because I've been so busy shoveling several tons of the stuff out of my driveway all winter. The previously snowiest winter her in northern Utah was 1993, and I'm pretty sure we just beat that in '08. The winter of 2007-08 has not been very friendly to those who are sure that man is causing the earth to turn into a fireball...

The Republican party has done a lot of stupid things lately, but its dumbest has been to prematurely anoint John McCain as its candidate. Republicans have lost much ground in the last year or two, and they seem almost giddy, with their coalescing around the worst possible Republican candidate, to lose even more. I haven't agreed with everything Mike Huckabee has said in the 2008 presidential campaign, but here's something I agree with : "Republicans have decided that elections are a messy thing, and anointings and coronations are much better,” Huckabee said on MSNBC. “It’s that kind of attitude that is going to be the death of the Republican Party in this country." I've heard some of the Utah minions of the Republican machine chastise Huckabee for staying in the US presidential race. Additionally, Doug Wright of KSL radio challenged the governor to stop thinking that he is God's gift to the world and get out of the race. "What could he possibly be thin...

Do unmarried-partner households account for the lion's share of domestic violence? I think so, but it's hard to know for sure. There don't seem to be many statistics tabulated on the subject. Hopefully in Utah, with Senate Bill 242, that is about to change. In 2000, there were just over 54 million households in the United States that contained married couples , and there were about 5,500,000 households in where there were unmarried partners. The percentage of unmarried-partner households in 2000, then, was about 9 percent. About 7 or 8 years ago, after a presentation on domestic violence, I asked the police officer who had given the presentation what percentage of domestic violence occurred in unmarried-partner households. He told me that they didn't keep those kind of statistics, but that if he had to estimate based on his experience, 70% of domestic violence occurs in unmarried-partner households. If that's true, it definitely pays to make a marriage commitm...

In 1983, Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative. It was quickly and consistently derided as "Star Wars". Reagan hated the term. It was never his intention to use it as an offensive weapon, but will his successors use it offensively? Some, including the Russians, believe that with the shootdown of a reconnaissance satellite last night, that's exactly what the United States is doing. The counterclaim was that the satellite was shot down at high altitude as a safety precaution. Who's right? China was roundly criticized--and the US secretly worries about the military implications of it all--when, just over a year ago, it shot down one of its older satellites . Very similar criticism of the US came from the former Soviet Union last night, when America shot down one of its satellites , officially as a safety precaution. The satellite was traveling at upwards of 17,000 mph with 1,000 pounds of hydrazine--that's "a hazardous fuel which could pos...

The 81-year old Fidel Castro announced that he will not run for public office in Cuba again. (As though he ever "ran" for it in the first place.) It would have been nice if he had announced that intention some 50 years ago. The Cuban people would be infinitely better off today. So would the world. Fidel Castro lived less than a cipher's life, yet he has been romanticized unceasingly by the Robert Redfords of America, aided by a largely misguided U.S. embargo of his crumbling fiefdom. He could have amounted to a pretty good baseball player, and with God's grace, I wish he would have. He would have done much less damage. Too little, too late, he announced that he will not "run" for President for an unprecedented second 50-year term. As it stands, the world would have been better off if Fidel Castro had never been born. An ailing Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he was retiring and will no...