Margaret Blair Young offers a great article on missionaries in Africa and some of the foods they eat at Meridian Magazine: http://www.ldsmag.com/church/article/8427?ac=1
It reminded me of experiences 31 years ago on my own mission in Bolivia.  I landed in February 1979 in the Santa Cruz airport with one other elder. The mission president and assistants were an hour late arriving to the airport, so we kind looked stupid looking around wondering what to do next.

My first assignment was Potosi, a city of 90,000 people in south-western Bolivia, about 13,000 feet above sea level.  Getting there by bus took several days, with a decent bus taking us to the traditional capitol of Sucre. From there, we 4 missionaries found a small little 15 seater bus to Potosi. I sat on a seat that swung down in the middle of the aisle. Along the way, an elder in front of me chuckled and told me that the kid next to him just got sick.  Around midnight, a major bridge was out.  Most of it was washed away. We picked up our luggage and walked across the remainder of the bridge to another bus and reloaded.  Then onto some of the most dangerous roadways in the world, where a one lane road with a drop off of a thousand feet could mean death if one ran into another vehicle coming the other way. Continue reading →

Voltaire said it, and I believe it.  We are surrounded by knuckleheads.

• Government idiots and the idiots that elect them do not understand governance.
• They do not understand budgets (both federal and public debt each are about $14 Trillion).
• They do not understand the importance of education for our children, but waste billions of  tax dollars on both supporting teacher’s unions and tests that do not help our kids, but rather get in the way of real progress.
• The public insists on Congress fixing our economy, but insist they cannot touch their pet programs (military, Medicare, Social Security, farm aid, you name it).
• Recent studies show only 1/4 of kids know that George Washington was the first president.
• People choose addictions over freedom: drugs, pornography, sex, television, video games, gambling, etc.
• People select movie, sports, and rock stars as the heroes they want to emulate.
• They keep watching to see what Snooky will do next.
• They choose to live on the political extremes of liberalism/conservatism or choose to be Democrat/Republican because their great-grandparents were, rather than carefully study each issue out and figure out what really works.
• Wars on drugs and poverty that have only exacerbated the problem.
• TSA and IRS were created to solve problems.
• The stimulus package paid off banks, corporations and unions, but average people who now owe $14 Trillion still are losing their homes.
• Paul Krugman and Al Gore both have Nobel Prizes.  So does President Obama for just being elected, but not really accomplishing anything.

Do you have any other reasons to add to the list proving that Common Sense is Not Common?

Or would you bravely try and disprove Voltaire?

It seems that Dilbert has readied for the upcoming economic collapse with food storage, etc.

original link: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/2011-07-31/

First, are you ready for any unexpected economic events?  Even being laid off for a year can be eased by having food storage and money in the bank.

Second and more importantly, what is your plan for keeping Alice and other marauders from taking your stuff in case of a major disaster?  Do you have claymores set up in your yard? Have you dug a moat?  Have you worked it out with your neighbors to help one another defend the neighborhood from outsiders? Do you have a large supply of white surrender flags?  Or do you have extra supplies to buy them all off?

Of course, do you have enough to trade for items you may need?  Will salt be a major economic item? If so, will you sell the little packets of salt you snitched over the years from fast food chains to those needing a daily dose of iodine?

Chemical gear?  High powered assault weapons?  Trapping equipment so you can catch squirrels and rodents for meat? Or is your hefty next door neighbor on the emergency food list?

Come on everyone!  Are you as ready as Dilbert is? Or are you gonna be the ones breaking in to get Dilbert’s goods?

Two new reports are out that throw a wrench in the cries concerning Global Warming.

First, Charles Monnett, the scientist who warned us that polar bears are dying in droves due to ice melting is on administrative leave while an investigation is on-going.  It is believed that Monnett fudged figures and facts for two purposes: 1. to continue receiving his $50 million federal grant money, and 2. to help push the fight against global warming.

Next, we can thank NASA satellite data from 2000 to 2011 to show us that the Earth is sending off more heat into space than global warming experts believed.  It means there is much less global warming than UN computer models predict.  Our atmosphere traps far less CO2 than the alarmist have claimed.   This is especially true with the escape of heat into space over the oceans.  And the facts show that the atmosphere sheds heat into space far sooner than the alarmist computer models predicted.

As they say: Garbage In, Garbage Out.  And may I add:  Fraudulent Data In, Garbage Out.

This definitely puts a major wrench in the global warming climate theories.  And perhaps now we can move on to truly important ecological issues, such as the Sun’s slower Sun spot activity taking us into a 30 year cooling period, or teaching our kids to recycle and care for the environment around them.

It has just been announced that archaeologists believe they have found the tomb of St Philip, one of the first apostles of Christ, in modern day Turkey.  He died around 80 AD, possibly by beheading or upside down crucifixion.  It is expected to become a major pilgrimage site.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/27/tomb-st-philip-apostle-discovered-in-turkey/

Meanwhile Mormons have made pilgrimages twice a year for more than a century to visit General Conference, where they can not only see the grave of a dead apostle, but see and hear living apostles speak.  Of course, the lazy ones can make the pilgrimage over the Internet.  I wonder how many of us Mormons still have an awe when we think of how lucky we are to having several St Philips in our midst.