My longtime friend John Tvedtnes presented these remarks at the August 2004 FAIR conference:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2004-fair-conference/2004-the-king-follett-discourse-in-the-light-of-ancient-and-medieval-jewish-and-christian-beliefs     Read more

      A few brief notes on today’s reading, which is 2 Nephi 10.   Especially if one views of the Book of Mormon as a modern production, and especially in the light of the horrific treatment of Jews that has repeatedly scarred human history during the years intervening since 1830, it would be easy to suspect that 2 Nephi 10:3 is an expression of antisemitism when it refers to “the Jews, . . . those who are the more wicked part of the... Read more

    “The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”  Milton Friedman           Read more

    http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-astronomers-will-actually-image-the-solar-systems-ninth-planet?trk_source=homepage-lede     Read more

    I’ve been watching for this over the past week or two.  It’s significant.  Thanks to Jabra Ghneim for bringing these specific items to my attention:   “Morocco Declaration: Muslim Nations Should Protect Christians from Persecution” Here’s the actual (English) text of the document in question: Marrakesh Declaration Read more

    The CBS television series Criminal Minds regularly closes with some quotation or other that supplies insight, or makes a point, relevant to the theme of the story that’s just concluded.  It gives the quotation and then the name of the quotation’s author.  No more.  Nothing is said about the author beyond his or her name.   Season 11’s episode 13 seems to have aired just last night.  (My wife and I were out with a friend to see... Read more

    Another week, another offense against common sense and common decency in the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865646322/Is-faith-irrational.html     Read more

    Thanks to a long-time friend for sharing this amusing item with me:   http://viewpure.com/Prls6Iz3B3E   I’m not sure that she wants her name given here, in this context.   P.S.  For the record (because it’s really astonishing how some folks can passionately misread things), I’m neither anti-war (necessarily) nor a leftist.  So I don’t share the . . . um, thinking behind the effigy shown above.  I’m not calling Mrs. Clinton a Nazi.     Read more

    Richard Lloyd Anderson, one of the finest scholars that Mormonism has ever produced, delivered this presentation at the 2004 FAIR conference:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2004-fair-conference/2004-explaining-away-the-book-of-mormon-witnesses     Read more

    In case anybody out there is interested:   I’ll be giving two firesides in the Fresno, California, area this weekend.  They’ll be more or less identical, both on the rough topic of “Behind the Headlines in the Middle East”:   Friday, January 29th — Fireside in the Fresno Stake Center (5685 N Cedar Ave, Fresno, CA 93710)   Saturday, January 30th — Fireside in the Visalia Stake Center (825 W Tulare Ave, Visalia, CA 93277)   I don’t have the times for the... Read more