This article talks about something that’s even better than medal totals:   https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2016/08/19/runner-helped-competitor-says-shes-fueled-faith/   For more on Abbey D’Agostino, see here.   Posted from Oslo, Norway     Read more

    This newly published Deseret News article may be of use (or, at least, of interest) to one or two of you out there:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865660591/What-a-fatwa-is-and-is-not.html   Posted from Oslo, Norway     Read more

    We had dinner at a really pleasant traditional Norwegian restaurant called the Engebret Café.  We ate outside, and the food was quite good.  It is said that the great Norwegian writers Bjornstjerne Bjørnson, Henrik Ibsen, and Knut Hamsun all had regular tables at the Engebret, as did the composer Edvard Grieg — listen here to “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and the wonderful “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen” (written, if I recall correctly, for his own bride... Read more

    The transcript of Patrick Mason’s remarks at the 2016 FairMormon conference is now up.  Or, perhaps more accurately, I should describe it as the text from which he delivered his remarks, as I think he supplied it for publication:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2016-fairmormon-conference/courage-convictions   I thought it a good talk.  There was a great deal about it that I liked and much with which I agree.  There were also some points with which I would quibble, or which I would... Read more

    It being Friday, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture has published a new article.   Seriously?  You’re surprised?   Posted from Oslo, Norway     Read more

    “Do not forget, some give little, and it is much for them, others give all, and it costs them no effort; who then has given most?”  Knut Hamsun (1859-1952)   Posted from Oslo, Norway     Read more

    Bizarre cultural trends can have painful consequences for the individuals caught up in them.  Here’s one apparent example:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439126/transgender-teens-parents-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-doctors   Posted from Oslo, Norway     Read more

    Among the best parts of the mythic narrative that has emerged in some circles about the Maxwell Institute purge of 2012 is the one that recounts how the Church threw me under the bus.  The Brethren, it is said, expressed their disapproval of me and all my works by repudiating me.  A canker on the body ecclesiastical, I’ve been excised.  I’ve become a non-person.  I’ve been relegated to the ash-heap of history.  I spend my days in richly earned howls... Read more

    A short Deseret News article from the past that some might find helpful in understanding recent headlines out of Turkey, etc.:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865614471/Who-are-the-Kurds.html   Please note that the Kurds are, overwhelmingly, Muslim.  The strife between them and their (likewise overwhelmingly Muslim) neighbors is seldom if ever religiously motivated.   Posted from Oslo, Norway     Read more

    http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/08/the_earliest_evidence_for_life_on_earth.html   It used to be assumed, more or less, that, if you simply threw enough time at the problem of the origin of life on Earth, that puzzle would effectively solve itself.  After all, given random chance and enough time, essentially anything is possible, right?   Now, we’re finding that life appeared on Earth as soon as it was physically possible for it do so — sooner, in fact, than we had even thought it possible.  ... Read more