http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/29153   Reading this piece, I couldn’t help but recall the clueless FBI agents who tried to deal with the Branch Davidian movement during the 1993 siege in Waco, Texas, that eventually culminated in the deaths of 87 people.   They were aware that the group’s leader, David Koresh, was fixated on “the seven seals.”   They thought that these were pinnipeds, of the kind that you would see swallowing buckets full of mackerel at Marineland or Sea World.  ... Read more

    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/04/15/peshmerga-troops-running-on-empty-in-fight-against-isis.html?intcmp=hplnws   Posted from Mesa, Arizona     Read more

    Perhaps we’re just feeling extravagant because our critics tell us that we’re supposed to be dead.  Whatever the motivation, though, we decided to post not just one new article today, but two.  Here’s the second: http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/mormonism-and-the-scientific-persistence-of-circles-aristotle-spacetime-and-one-eternal-round/   Posted from Mesa, Arizona     Read more

    Today is Friday, is it not?   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph-and-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-map-part-2-of-2/   Posted from Mesa, Arizona   Read more

    Today’s reading, Alma 5, contains another of the Book of Mormon’s greatest sermons.   I think it’s helpful, in reading through this sermon, to think of Alma’s own personal history.  Remember his spectacular conversion story, which involved a dramatic appearance by an angel.  That angelophany turned his life around and, as he saw it, literally saved him from damnation.   So, when he speaks about captivity and about deliverance from bondage and from hell, about being awakened from a... Read more

    As I pointed out last night, this is a really important new initiative:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865652190/To-Lincoln-the-face-of-Mormonism-was-George-Q-Cannon-whose-journals-the-LDS-Church-is-publishing.html?pg=all   Posted from Mesa, Arizona     Read more

    In today’s reading, Alma 4, we’re reminded that, at bottom, many of the most fundamental social, political, and economic problems are actually spiritual problems.   Or, to put it another way, politics and government policy — important though they are — aren’t basic.  Sometimes, the culture itself is sick and needs to be fixed.   “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people,” John Adams remarked, concerning the American polity. “It is wholly inadequate to the government of... Read more

    For anybody who is interested in the history of Mormonism during the second half of the nineteenth century, the beginnings of the Church in Hawaii, the issuing of the Manifesto ending plural marriage, and so forth, this is a really big deal:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/george-q-cannon-journal-release   Over the course of several years back in the early nineties, I was privileged to have a complete typescript of George Q. Cannon’s journals in my possession.  Alas, nothing ever emerged into print from... Read more

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/04/14/you-might-still-be-a-simple-bacterium-if-not-for-magnetism/   Of course, bacteria may be quite happy.  Who’s to say that they’re not?   Posted from Mesa, Arizona     Read more

    Earlier today, I saw a snippet of an interview with the great Kobe Bryant, five-time NBA champion for the Los Angeles Lakers, who had just scored sixty points in his last professional game.  (Unfortunately, it was against the Utah Jazz.)   He was asked how he would like to be remembered.   I was impressed by his reply.   He said that he would like to be remembered as “a talented overachiever.”  He had been blessed with talent, he... Read more