A new discovery challenges standard models of the evolution of galaxies:   pace.com/29893-supermassive-black-hole-too-big-galaxy.html   Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada     Read more

    Perhaps against all expectations, and certainly against Phillip Jenkins’s own explicit declaration, the conversation about Book of Mormon historicity and related scholarship continues between Professor Hamblin and Professor Jenkins:   Jenkins 19:  Book of Mormon Revisited   Hamblin 27: The Entrada of AD 378   Hamblin 28:  Homophony and Proper Names   Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada     Read more

    I was so busy yesterday, and having so much fun, that I forgot to note the appearance of yesterday’s weekly Deseret News article:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865632206/The-failing-churches-of-ancient-Roman-Asia.html   Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada   Read more

    An interesting article by a pair of Jewish academics in Los Angeles:   http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/what-jews-can-learn-from-mormons-insights-from-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints/   Another interesting question would be, “What can Mormons learn from Jews?”  (That might be a good topic for future blogging.)   Many thanks to Brian Adams for his bringing this article to my notice.   Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada     Read more

    Neal Rappleye, who has been watching the back-and-forth between Professors Jenkins and Hamblin regarding the historicity of the Book of Mormon, weighs in with another useful comment:   http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/2015/07/ancient-book-of-mormon-studies-selected.html   Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada     Read more

    The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals’ expansion of the welfare state. Thomas Sowell   Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada     Read more

    After my presentation this afternoon about the Middle East, I had a conversation, of sorts, with the kind of hardcore libertarian who helps to keep me from fully signing up.   His position, so far as I could understand it, is that Israel and the United States are the greatest threats to human welfare on the planet.   Because I didn’t agree with him, he described me as whitewashing American and Israeli crimes against humanity.   I asked... Read more

      I’m not getting as much time to attend sessions and look at exhibits here at FreedomFest 2015 as I would like, owing to some personal business to which I’m obliged to attend — and to my own necessary and overdue preparations for my presentations this afternoon and tomorrow morning — but there’s some fascinating stuff here.   A couple of hours ago, my wife and I attended a debate between the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, professor... Read more

    I don’t know whether or not there’s really a spate of arson attacks against black churches.  Possibly so.  I haven’t been following the story — or, frankly, given my travel and activity schedule in recent days, any story — very closely of late, but I think I heard that at least one such church-burning had turned out to be lightning-caused and also that, as a matter of fact, a number of white churches have burned recently, as well.... Read more

    A very promising tool for historical understanding:   http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2015/07/09/volcanoes_linked_to_cultural_upheaval_109304.html   Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada   Read more