in 1991, Russell Kirk gave the this talk to a group of conservatives associated with the Heritage Foundation. Oh, that we had listened to him. Kirk, one of the primary conservative voices of the 20th century, said the Republican party had lost its way by becoming the party of war and big spending. And this was before the second Iraq war and our endless occupation of the Middle East! (Kirk died in 1994 and did not see the second Iraq war). Let me excerpt some key paragraphs from Kirk’s talk:

Now the Republican Party long boasted of its frugality. The Bush Administration, on the contrary, has stolen some of the Democrats’ old clothes while the sons of Jefferson and Jackson were out bathing. But those purloined garments are ragged; and Republicans look odd and unconvincing when clad in them.

Oppressive Taxation. With respect to a sharp increase in the level of taxes, it seems as if the Bush Administration really does not understand the principle of diminishing returns, or know the history of the consequences of excessive taxation. When computing our federal income tax very recently, my wife and I discovered that more than half our gross income is taken in taxation — federal income tax; Social Security taxes; state income taxes; village, township, and county taxes, school property tax; sales taxes. And we are not of the number of Franklin Roosevelt’s “malefactors of great wealth.” We are in the process of educating four young daughters, paying off mortgages, trying to save something for one’s declining years — I, being seventy-two years of age already — and contributing to charitable causes. Yet we are better off than many taxpayers. What straw will break the camel’s back?

A state that annually exacts in taxes half of a citizen’s income is more oppressive, financially, than the despotisms of old. In the ancient monarchies of China, a tax load of more than ten percent would have been thought unjust. Excessive taxation is a major cause of the decline and fall of great states: so writes C. Northcote Parkinson, the author of Parkinson’s Law, in his last book.

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John Gee is an Egyptologist and expert on ancient things.  He can be pretty good in his field at times, and share those insights on his blog.  But this weekend, he drifted far afield of his area of expertise in ruminating on his memorializing a list of those “fallen”.  None of his group are dead, at least not in the sense of having departed this life.  Of this I’m rather certain, since I read Daniel Peterson’s blog all the time.  Instead, he has a list of “fallen” those that were once at the top of BYU’s power elite, who have fallen from grace over the last year.

Reality has it that few stay on top for very long.  Even though Daniel Peterson and others now drift around in a form of persona non grata with the Maxwell Institute, they still have lots of power and persuasion in their own fields and among LDS.

My post here regards two issues with Gee’s post.  First, it is time to stop beating a dead horse.  John, you are no longer a front runner in the Maxwell Institute. Get over it and move on.

Second, and this is my more important issue: I’m saddened and shocked that he would memorialize such a group, rather than the truly fallen, on Memorial Day. That Daniel Peterson and others have been affected by choices at BYU is well known now.  To compare them with the truly fallen is an outrage.  These people still collect paychecks. These people still go home each night to their families. I still read on Daniel’s blog of him attending concerts and traveling.  There is very little that has changed in the world because of the changes last year. The gospel is still true, and there will continue to be blogs, FAIR and Mormon Interpreter, etc., to feed the egos of those that may still feel sleighted.
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The inconvenient truth is that global temperatures are slightly down over the last 10 years.

Take a look at this graph:

Surprised?

I linked to this global temperature data and a shocked friend of mine asked, “what about the melting polar ice?” He is correct that the ice cover in the Arctic is down. But it turns out the ice cover in the Antarctic is way up, and that the global ice cover is about where it was in 1980. Read on for the proof.

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According to this article, Pope Francis says all are redeemed through Christ, even atheists.

“They complain,” the Pope said in his homily, because they say, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.” And Jesus corrects them: “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.” The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of ​​possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong . . . Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation”
Pope Francis went further in his sermon to say:

“The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”.. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

Responding to the leader of the Roman Catholic church’s homily, Father James Martin, S.J. wrote in an email to The Huffington Post:

“Pope Francis is saying, more clearly than ever before, that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for everyone. That’s always been a Christian belief. You can find St. Paul saying in the First Letter to Timothy that Jesus gave himself as a “ransom for all.” But rarely do you hear it said by Catholics so forcefully, and with such evident joy. And in this era of religious controversies, it’s a timely reminder that God cannot be confined to our narrow categories.”

You might say the Pope is saying that only people who “do good” are redeemed. Then you have to define “doing good.” In any case, I think this statement is very interesting. What say you?

This story in the Daily Telegraph (London) recounts the growing success of Goldman Sachs, the investment banking firm, in Salt Lake City.

(Goldman) initially focused on support staff, but in recent years it has added asset managers, research analysts and investment bankers. Goldman now has nearly 2,000 employees in Salt Lake — almost 5pc of its global workforce — making the city its second-largest operation in America, and its fourth largest worldwide.

Far from balking at the investment banking giant on their doorstep, Salt Lake City residents are grateful for the jobs Goldman has brought, and are perplexed by the hostility the bank faces in other parts of America. The unemployment rate in Utah is 4.9pc, compared with a 7.6pc national average.

I am of two minds about this. Continue reading →