A Shameful Thought for the Day

by Richard Dawkins

Was it for this that I broke the habit of years and accepted the Guardian’s invitation to listen to Thought for the Day [1]? Was it for this that the BBC, including the director general himself, no less, spent months negotiating with the Vatican? What on earth were they negotiating about, if all that emerged [2] was the damp, faltering squib we have just strained our ears to hear?

We’ve already had what little apology we are going to get (none in most cases) for the raped children, the Aids-sufferers in Africa, the centuries spent attacking Jews, science, women and “heretics”, the indulgences and more modern (and tax-deductible) methods of fleecing the gullible (more…)

By D.P. Sorensen

(D.P. Sorensen’s column appears regularly in City Weekly, a Salt Lake City newspaper)

Crews are working around the clock at the Utah Capitol to clean up a money spill that has sent tons of cash, coins and personal checks cascading through offices, down marble steps, through the rotunda and out onto Capitol Hill, where aides to Governor Herbert are doing their best to stop looters from scooping up the flowing lucre and stuffing it into their pockets or down into their pants.

Investigators have yet to pinpoint the leak, but experts agree that the pipeline most likely burst in the governor’s private office. According to spokeswoman Darla Sheckel, the pipe was old and narrow and couldn’t handle the unprecedented cash flow.

“Previous governors didn’t have to worry about the load of dough we’ve been getting. The old pipe could handle the nickels and dimes occasionally trickling into the governor’s office when George Dewey Clyde or Cal Rampton or any of those other guys, and that one gal, were around. But ever since the governor got out one of his old real estate For Sale signs and (more…)

Hatch skips DREAM Act vote he calls “cynical exercise”

Published: Monday, Dec. 20, 2010 6:40 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Orrin Hatch said he skipped a vote on the failed DREAM Act over the weekend because it was a “cynical exercise in political charades” by the Senate’s Democratic leadership.

The act, intended to help undocumented youths earn citizenship by attending college or serving in the military, failed 55-41 on Saturday with the support of just three Republicans, including Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

In today’s Senate where Republicans are filibustering everything, the 55 vote majority is not enough for the bill to pass the 60 vote requirement.

Bennett was one of three Republicans (more…)

Salt Lake Tribune Editorial

Published: December 19, 2010 11:40PM

Rule No. 1: Don’t start a land war in Asia. Rule No. 2: Don’t ever dare auditors to find something wrong.

Utah Department of Health brass violated Rule No. 2 when legislative auditors in 2009 found holes in the department’s ability to detect and stop fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid. Medicaid is a program funded by both the federal and state governments to provide health care to the poor.

Dr. David Sundwall, head of the Utah Health Department, told auditors in 2009 that doctors in Utah had higher ethical standards than those elsewhere and that he did not believe that Medicaid fraud was nearly the problem here that legislative auditors suspected it was.

Lo and behold, the auditors are back with another report. Guess what they found? (more…)

By RICHARD LARDNER

The Associated Press

Published: December 19, 2010 04:16PM

Washington • At two in the morning on Sept. 9, 2005, five DynCorp International security guards assigned to Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s protective detail returned to their compound drunk, with a prostitute in tow. Less than a week later, three of these same guards got drunk again, this time in the VIP lounge of the Kabul airport while awaiting a flight to Thailand.

“They had been intoxicated, loud and obnoxious,” according to an internal company report of the incident, which noted that Afghanistan’s deputy director for elections and a foreign diplomat were also in the lounge. “Complaints were made regarding the situation.” DynCorp fired the three guards.

What would be the reason that the State Department chooses to hire private contractors instead of specially trained units of our United States Armed Forces? (1) Because they can do dirty deeds that we don’t want to be caught doing red-handed? (2) Because it’s a way to funnel big time money to corporate friends? (3) Because we can’t recruit, teach, and train the quality of people it takes?

We shouldn’t be doing this! This is like privatizing the army! Hiring mercenaries should not be the American way.

Such episodes represent the headaches that U.S. contractors can cause (more…)

By Ed Firmage Jr.

Published: December 18, 2010 01:01AM
(Ed Firmage Jr. is a fine-art photographer in Salt Lake City.)

From the beginning, America has been a land of opportunity. And because of this, Americans dreamed big.

Our optimism comes from the unique experience of starting our national adventure with a continent of pristine land at our feet. America before Europeans was of course not uninhabited or untouched by people. But the native inhabitants practiced a mode of living that left the land intact. They, therefore, as much as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, are our founding fathers and mothers.

And so, unlike any people since the Stone Age, settlers in America enjoyed the benefit of a continent of unspoiled resources. For as long as the frontier remained, Americans could look West and see a future that was theirs to make and enjoy. As historian Frederick Jackson Turner observed, our character stems from our relationship with a frontier that seemed to be never-ending.

In the years following the “closing” of the frontier in 1890, Americans found themselves enmeshed in global problems (more…)

Salt Lake Tribune Editorial

Published: December 18, 2010 01:01AM

A 3rd District judge was right about one thing when he ruled that in choosing candidates for this year’s state school board election, “The nominating committee clearly violated the state’s Open Meetings Act on numerous occasions.”

But we take issue with his conclusion that those violations “only moderately damaged the act’s policies of conducting the public’s business openly.” The Utah Open Meetings Act is not simply a set of policies; it is state law. And if the committee did not sufficiently break the law in this case, it would be difficult to imagine one in which Judge Anthony Quinn would say the law had been more than “moderately” broken.

The judge ruled that the law was broken, but offered no remedy. The undemocratic election was allowed to stand. The judge in essence said, “Democracy be damned, it is just too big a nuisance.”

Once again the community is enlightened by a vigilant press—The Salt Lake Tribune.

The nominating committee failed to give public notice of at least a half-dozen meetings (more…)

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

The Associated Press

Published: December 15, 2010 04:39PM

The Dannon Co. agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it had improperly claimed that some of its popular yogurt and dairy drinks could help prevent common illnesses and relieve irregularity.

As part of a long-running national advertising campaign, Dannon had asserted that a single daily serving of its Activia yogurt could ease irregularity and that its DanActive dairy drink could reduce a person’s likelihood of catching a cold or the flu.

Here we go again. Another corporation lying about its products. Thousands of customers being duped and their hard earned money going into the pockets of corporate thieves. (more…)

Published: October 16, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune Forum

Wayne Steffner is correct when he cites the biblical references that denounce homosexuality, adultery, and bestiality (“It’s in the Old Testament,” Forum, Oct. 13). He shouldn’t just admonish us with his lurid interest in sexual behavior; he needs to follow all of his Bible’s “moral” teachings:

• Don’t work on the Sabbath; kill anyone who does (Exodus 31:12).

• Never wear clothing made of mixed fibers (Leviticus 19:19).

• Don’t eat pork, rabbits and shellfish (Leviticus 11:6).

• Men, do not cut your hair and don’t shave (Leviticus 19:27).

• Shun menstruating women; they and everything they touch are unclean (Leviticus. 15:19).

• Kill new brides who are not virgins (Deuteronomy 21:18).

• Force rapists to marry the women they rape (Deuteronomy 22:28). (more…)

By CARLA K. JOHNSON and GEOFF MULVIHILL

The Associated Press

September 24, 2010 10:27AM

CHICAGO • Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Friday announced a $100 million donation to Newark, N.J., public schools in a move that could enhance his reputation just before the opening on an unflattering movie about him, “The Social Network.”

Why Newark?

“Well, Newark, is really just because I believe in these guys, right?” Zuckerberg told Oprah Winfrey on her TV show.

“These guys” are Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a Democrat. The three appeared together Friday on Winfrey’s show.

Zuckerberg’s donation is the Internet tycoon’s first major (more…)

Dear Cardinal Mahony,

I saw your recent blog post entitled Judge Vaughn Walker Got it Wrong, in which you wrote:

[Walker's] decision fails to deal with the basic, underlying issue–rather he focused solely upon individual testimony on how Prop 8 affected them personally. Wrong focus.

There is only one issue before each of us Californians: Is Marriage of Divine or of Human Origin?

Judge Walker pays no attention to this fundamental issue, and relies solely upon how Prop 8 made certain members of society “feel” about themselves.

Those of us who supported Prop 8 and worked for its passage did so for one reason: We truly believe that Marriage was instituted by God for the specific purpose of carrying out God’s plan for the world and human society. Period.

That may be what you and many others believe about marriage, but that belief has no (more…)

By Bernard Condon

The Associated Press

Updated: 06/12/2010 11:47:24 PM MDT

New York » Jonis Assmann doesn’t know how derivatives work, but he’s counting on them to help bring in next year’s soybean harvest in Brazil.

Assmann is not alone in his confusion, even though trade in many items we buy every day would slow or even stop without derivatives. The financial instrument even touches the outcomes of Utah Jazz basketball games.

But they also got much of the blame for the financial meltdown, so it’s no wonder they’re the target of a regulatory overhaul that a congressional conference committee took up last week.

The legislation could affect everything from a cup of coffee (more…)

By Boyer Jarvis

Updated: 02/25/2010 05:26:05 PM MST

The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board on Feb. 20 bravely endorsed civil unions for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters (“Equal rights: We can have marriage, civil unions,” Opinion).

In this op/ed piece, Boyer Jarvis, Utah’s caretaker of civil rights, praises the Tribune for ‘bravely’ endorsing civil unions, and then gently prods all of us to take the more courageous step to full equality—marriage.  He reminds us that separate isn’t equal and that we shouldn’t settle for half-steps.

Because I have taken the trouble to learn a little bit about the long history of the custom of marriage, I am willing to assert that marriage was civil before it became religious. At first, marriage was a way for two separate factions (two families, two tribes, two fiefdoms, two commercial enterprises, two empires, etc.) to unite and gain strength by marrying the daughter of one faction leader to the son of the other faction leader. When churches became significant elements of society, they quite naturally made the uniting of a woman with a man a basic part of their religious creed and practice.

By the 16th century, churches apparently had become the primary manager of marriage, and when Henry VIII could not obtain the Pope’s approval for his divorce from Catherine, King Henry ended his allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church and established the Church of England. Churches and religious leaders were important contributors to the public life of Colonial America, but the Founding Fathers were careful to exclude (more…)

Published on Sunday, February 21, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

This is a very good read. It’s long, but worthwhile. Take the time to read it and you will be glad you did.

A Good Week For Science — and Insight into Politics

by George Lakoff

Over the past couple of weeks, the NY Times has been reporting on results from the cognitive and brain sciences that confirm past research in those fields partly by me and partly by my community of colleagues. What makes this of general, not personal, interest is that the scientific results are especially important for understanding what has been going wrong for the Obama administration and for liberals generally, and what has been going right for conservatives. I’m going to start out with some science, and get on to the politics after brief discussions of three important NY Times articles and what they mean scientifically.

It’s always satisfying for a scientist to see his or her predictions proved right experimentally (which happens often) and actually discussed in the press (which happens rarely). As a cognitive scientist and linguist, it’s been a good couple of weeks for me and my colleagues, especially in the NY Times.  Experiments are hard to do and I celebrate all the experimenters cited.  Experiments are also hard to report on, and I praise the journalists at the Times for a fine job.

Metaphor and Embodiment

Back in 1980, Mark Johnson and I, in Metaphors We Live By, demonstrated the existence of metaphorical thought and argued that metaphor and other aspects of mind were embodied. That book, and our 1987 books, my Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things and Mark’s The Body in the Mind, helped to start a cottage industry in the study of embodied cognition.

The experimental results confirming our theories of embodied cognition (more…)

The Man with a Plan

Someone’s in charge, right?

By D.P. Sorensen

Columnist for City Weekly

If we are willing to cut God (by the way, does anyone know what his last name is?) some slack, we could say that he just wasn’t paying attention when the earthquake struck Haiti last week, taking the lives, by latest estimates, of some 100,000 souls in that island paradise. Proof that he does pay attention, at least part of the time, came in the form of his intervention in 2008’s election, when, according to Sarah Palin, her selection as the Republican vice presidential candidate was “God’s will.”

The fact that God smiled on Sarah Palin, but not on the 100,000 Haitians, raises some troubling questions about God’s basic competence. Even if we do cut him some slack, and allow that he was (more…)

(This was taken from the website of Humanists of Utah and was credited to George Washington. It’s worthy of attention.)

-Associate yourself with persons of good character. It is better to be alone than in bad company.

-Think before you speak.

-Accept corrections thankfully.

-Be not obstinate in supporting your own opinion.

-Do not repeat news if you know not the truth thereof.

-Speak not evil of the absent.

-Do not reprove or correct another in anger.

-Do not curse or revile anyone.

-Let your conversation be without malice or envy.

-Yield the place in front of the fire to the latest comer.

-Jog not the desk on which another reads or writes.

-Speak not injurious words either in jest or in earnest. Scoff at none although (more…)

Tribune Editorial

Updated: 12/11/2009 12:20:29 AM MST

It has come to this.

Utopia, the ill-starred fiber-optic network in which 10 Utah cities are enmeshed, is hemorrhaging cash. Those cities already are on the hook for millions of dollars in pledges of sales tax revenues to back the system’s debt. Utopia could begin to call on those pledges just as cities face budget crises caused by the recession.

Now the Utopians have come up with a new scheme: create special service districts to finance the system. But the folks in Brigham City, who apparently are the first to participate in this new model, have discovered an ugly catch.

The service costs $3,000 upfront. Or you can pay $25 a month for 20 years, which adds up to $6,000. But if you choose the payment plan, the special service district will place a lien on your home.

Customers in Brigham City have complained that salesmen didn’t tell them about the lien when they signed up for the monthly payment option. Now both Utopia and the city say that it’s too late for customers to back out.

This is just the latest unpleasant surprise that Utopia has sprung, and it may not be the last.

It wasn’t supposed to work out this way. When backers proposed the network in 2002, (more…)

Tiger Woods said Friday he is taking an indefinite leave from golf to try to save his marriage, the biggest fallout yet from two shocking weeks filled with allegations of rampant extramarital affairs.

“I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person,” Woods said on his Web site.

Woods and his wife, Elin, have been married five years and have a 2-year-old daughter and a 10-month-old son.

The announcement came two weeks after Woods crashed his SUV into a tree outside his Florida home, setting in motion a stunning downfall for the world’s No. 1 player who for 13 years rarely made news off the golf course. One woman who said she had a 31-month affair with Woods shared a voice mail that she said Woods left her two nights before his Nov. 27 accident.

“I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children,” Woods said. “I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness. It may not be possible to repair the damage I’ve done, but I want to do my best to try.”

Woods has not been seen in public since the accident.

He gave no indication when he might return in what could be a pivotal year as he pursues the record 18 major championships won by Jack Nicklaus. Woods, who did not win a major (more…)

by Sean Means

Salt Lake Tribune

The debate over gay marriage — and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ role in passing California’s anti-gay Proposition 8 — is coming back to Utah.

“We’re bringing the pain of this home,” said Reed Cowan, who directed “8: The Mormon Proposition,” which will have its world premiere next month in Park City at the Sundance Film Festival.

Cowan’s documentary is one of more than 50 titles announced Dec. 3 in the festival’s non-competitive slate.

“It’s really well done, and it’s really thorough,” festival director John Cooper said. “[Cowan] goes very deep, into the Mormon Church and its relationship to the anti-gay-marriage movement, all the way back almost before it really started, all the way back to the ’90s.”

The movie chronicles the 2008 campaign for Prop. 8, which overturned a court decision to allow same-sex marriage in California. In the film, Cowan tracks the LDS Church’s (more…)

Published on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 by The Daily Beast

Worse Than Enron?

Wall Street’s big banks are playing dangerous new accounting games—and this time taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of billions. Nomi Prins uncovers a scandal in the making.

by Nomi Prins

Enron was the financial scandal that kicked off the decade: a giant energy trading company that appeared to be doing brilliantly-until we finally noticed that it wasn’t. It’s largely been forgotten given the wreckage that followed, and that’s too bad: we may be repeating those mistakes, on a far larger scale.

Specifically, as the largest Wall Street banks return to profitability-in some cases, breaking records-they say everything is rosy. They’re lining up to pay back their TARP money and asking Washington to back off. But why are they doing so well? Remember that Enron got away with their illegalities so long because their financials were so complicated that not even the analysts paid to monitor the Houston-based trading giant could cogently explain how they were making so much money.

After two weeks sifting through over one thousand pages of SEC filings for the largest banks, I have the same concerns. While Washington ponders (more…)