“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.  Happiness never decreases by being shared.”   “You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”     Read more

    Playboy has just announced that, effective next March, it will cease publication of images of naked women:   http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/business/media/nudes-are-old-news-at-playboy.html?_r=0   I know.  I know.  I had to check my calendar to make sure that it’s not April Fool’s Day.  For Playboy to give up naked women is as if Campbell’s were to stop making soup, or Kleenex to turn from tissues to building tractors.   Nevertheless, it’s true.   But the moralists out there, and those who feel... Read more

    http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/experiment-shows-future-events-decide-what-happens-in-the-past/article/434829   I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.  (J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Papers [1927], 286)   (Thanks to John Kolak for bringing the linked article to my notice.)     Read more

    This is potentially big news, if it’s confirmed.  Especially so if the self-proclaimed “caliph” of the so-called “Islamic State” has been killed:   http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/11/world/iraq-al-baghdadi-raid/index.html   But such claims have been made before, and this one hasn’t yet been confirmed.   We shall see.     Read more

    Matthew 19:23-30 Mark 10:23-31 Luke 18:24-30 Compare Luke 22:28-30   1.   There is and was no gate in Jerusalem called “the eye of a needle,” for which a camel had to kneel or be stripped of its load, or through which a camel was unable to pass.   The idea here is clearly that, without grace, rich people won’t be able to enter heaven.   This happens, though, to be true for all of us, even if... Read more

    Quite interesting:   http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/republican-candidates-work-to-win-over-mitts-mormon-army-in#.jlVZ7NzWl4   I still wish Mitt himself were running, though.   With Trump and Carson as the Republican frontrunners, and with Bush and Rubio and Cruz and almost all of the others failing to catch fire in any notable way, I fear that we’ll end up with a President Clinton II, or a President Biden.  I’m not too afraid of a President Sanders just yet, although, if the Republican nominee is bad enough, the Democrats... Read more

    I just saw a personally shocking item from the United Arab Emirates:   http://www.thenational.ae/uae/heritage/mormon-community-in-the-uae-loses-a-rare-individual   I didn’t know Rob Bateman well.   Far from it, in fact.  I only met him following one of my lectures at Education Week this past August.  I had previously heard from his stake director of public affairs, and Rob Bateman and I spoke at some length by telephone in early September, I think.  He had some ambitious and visionary plans for his... Read more

  I think it’s time for me to get back to my series of New Testament comments.  So here we go:     Matthew 19:13-15 Mark 10:13-16 Luke 18:15-17 Compare Matthew 18:3; John 3:3, 5   Jesus’ attention to little children tells us many things.   Among them, we learn that he doesn’t value wealth, status, power, sophistication, class, or degrees.   He just doesn’t care.   Nor, apart from the very specific situations in which such things might be... Read more

      “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”  (Theodore Roosevelt)     Read more

    http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2015/10/12/shroud_of_turin_dna_comes_from_all_over_world.html     Read more