I’m looking forward to seeing this:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429273/13-hours-michael-bay-benghazi-film   Even though I know that it will be painful to watch.   America needs to see it.     Read more

    An interesting hypothesis:   http://www.nature.com/news/alien-life-could-thrive-in-ancient-star-clusters-1.19124     Read more

    I don’t want to drive people out of the Kingdom.  But I also don’t want us to pretend that just about anything goes and that truth and standards don’t matter.   http://www.mormonwomenstand.com/you-cant-be-loyally-opposed-to-the-church/   I can’t help but think, in this context, of a deservedly very famous motto from an otherwise little-remembered German Lutheran theologian of the early seventeenth century, Rupertus Meldenius.  The phrase or motto occurs in a tract on Christian unity that he wrote during the Thirty Years War (1618–1648),... Read more

    Jay Nordlinger lays out some of the reasons why real conservatives are, or at least should be, concerned about Donald Trump as a presidential candidate:   “Trumpservations” (31 August 2015)   “Trumpservations, Cont.” (2 January 2016)     Read more

    We come, now, to a favorite chapter of mine in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 11.   And I’m simply going to mention, in this connection, one of my very favorite articles among the various Mormon-related things that I’ve written and published.   Here it is in its abbreviated form:   http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/9/2/S00003-50be458eb2b313Peterson.pdf   Here it is in its original much longer form, which I greatly prefer:   http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1085&index=9   Many years ago, I was reading the first edition... Read more

    I have ambivalent feelings about the Oregon stand-off.   I think, for example, that there are reasonable grounds for believing that federal officials have behaved far too heavy-handedly in the matter of the Hammond family and, more generally, toward the ranchers in the area.   And I’m not unhappy that this issue is being raised on a national level.   I think, though, that the brandishing of weapons in this protest has muddied the waters.   However, I... Read more

    He who hunts for flowers will finds flowers; and he who loves weeds will find weeds. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)       Read more

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/429187/saudi-arabia-iran-middle-east-things-get-worse     Read more

    As you’re probably aware, there’s a prominent Mormon element in the takeover of that federal property in Oregon.  Here’s a reasonably accurate account of that element:   http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/04/3735830/bundy-mormonism/   Quite understandably, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has distanced itself from the action:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-responds-to-inquiries-regarding-oregon-armed-occupation   But do Ammon Bundy — note the first name — and the pseudonymous “Captain Moroni” have any justification at all for their protest?  (I have no reason to believe that all or even... Read more

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/01/02/ask-ethan-is-interstellar-travel-possible/       Read more