A Democratic adviser says Ann Romney, who raised five boys, hasn’t worked a day in her life.

To quote Rick Perry, “oops.”

Everybody knows the mom of five kids is working plenty, and the job never seems to end. Have you ever had two kids with croup in the same night? We have, and believe me that is work, a 24-hour-a-day job. I’m sure Ann Romney had more significant challenges.

Unfortunately, it is all too common these days to hear people saying women “don’t work” unless they leave the house to go earn money. It is especially sad to hear a woman trying to make political points by claiming Mitt Romney is out of touch by claiming that a mother of five children never worked.

In fairness, it should be noted that many Obama spokespeople immediately distanced themselves from the comment. Gaffes like this cannot help the campaigner in chief get another four years. Is it possible the backlash to this comment will help bring more respect for stay-at-home moms? Let’s hope so, but I tend to think it will be short-lived.

He is Risen!

There is a scene in the movie “Forrest Gump” that I believe perfectly summarizes why so many of my friends seem to be talking past each other on the issue of the “We Are a Warlike People” billboard.

To summarize, a group of very well-intentioned, peace-loving people, some of whom are friends of mine, helped finance a billboard on I-15 in Utah that looks like this:

There are other friends of mine, all very well-intentioned as well, who reacted very negatively to this billboard. If you want to understand why, I would encourage you to read the comments on the original post, because every time I try to summarize their arguments I seem to do it very poorly and make them upset (even though my intentions are good — Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood).

In any case, let me describe the scene in the movie “Forrest Gump” and why it applies here.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been unusually warm in most of the U.S. this year, so of course the warming alarmists are out predicting apocalyptic futures. It should be no surprise, however, the alarmists are out of touch with scientific reality. In fact, global temperatures, measured the most accurate way, ie by satellite, are below normal.

Read the rest of this entry »

The answer is: not much, except they were the subjects of two different talks by apostles at General Conference during the morning session April 1.

To sum up, Elder Nelson called into question completely materialistic, non-theistic explanations for the existence of the world, and said that relying only on the Big Bang theory (the actual theory, not the TV show) is a bit short-sighted. In a later talk, Elder Christofferson reminded people that the Church is a church of revelation and that spending your time on hermeneutics and exegesis was to spend some time speaking and reading about God but to ignore the power thereof.

The reaction of some of my more intellectual friends to these talks was interesting. One friend who has a PhD in biology said Elder Nelson’s comments were “anti-science.” There was widespread concern that the apostles are encouraging anti-intellectualism.

I found these talks completely uncontroversial and in line with many, many other things said by apostles over the years. But let’s take a look.

Read the rest of this entry »