Article in the Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2011

Why God Did Not Create the Universe

There is a sound scientific explanation for the making of our world—no gods required

By STEPHEN HAWKING And LEONARD MLODINOW

According to Viking mythology, eclipses occur when two wolves, Skoll and Hati, catch the sun or moon. At the onset of an eclipse people would make lots of noise, hoping to scare the wolves away. After some time, people must have noticed that the eclipses ended regardless of whether they ran around banging on pots.

This article in the Wall Street Journal was the subject of an article in The Deseret News that is also posted on Watts Cookin’. Our comments are attached within the Deseret News commentary posted under the headline “Hawking’s New Book Dismisses God”. Hawking is widely regarded as one of the smartest men in the world, if not number one, and it is worth our time to listen and learn.

Ignorance of nature’s ways led people in ancient times to postulate many myths in an effort to make sense of their world. But eventually, people turned to philosophy, that is, to the use of reason—with a good dose of intuition—to decipher their universe. Today we use reason, mathematics and experimental test—in other words, modern science.

Albert Einstein said, “The most incomprehensible thing (more…)

In the beginning: Stephen Hawking’s new book dismisses God’s role in our universe

By Michael De Groote

Deseret News

Published: Friday, Feb. 4, 2011 7:10 p.m. MST

When British physicist Stephen Hawking came into the auditorium at Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., the crowd went wild. The Los Angeles Times reported that one fan, 13-year-old Evan Hetland, even dubbed him “the nerd pope.”

Hawking was somewhat the darling of some religious people for his occasional references to God, such as one time when he said that if a complete theory of physics were discovered, then “we would know the mind of God.”

But Hawking’s latest book, “The Grand Design,” written with physicist Leonard Mlodinow, leaves little room for God — or philosophy for that matter. A Wall Street Journal article they wrote based on their book is titled “Why God Did Not Create the Universe: There is a sound scientific explanation for the making of our world — no gods required.”

Ouch.

“Ouch,” my eye! There is no ‘ouch’ for believers. Nevertheless, a compliment to the Deseret News for publishing this story. Hawking’s views are significant and obviously puts religious folks in a defensive posture. As expected the article by Michael DeGroote couldn’t be printed in the Deseret News without a significant counter punch that deflects the issue, and it is good and credible journalism to present opposing points of view.

Believers can take a punch better than anyone. Facts seldom hit a believer square on, they are almost always deflected. Believers are resilient beyond, no pun intended, ‘belief.’  There is no penetration. Once they have talked with God (more…)

Tribune Forum Letter by Elaine Ball

First published Jan 29 2011 01:01AM

The front-page article “Without marriage, same-sex parents unable to adopt” (Tribune, Jan. 24) was both heartwarming and heart-wrenching.

I am a lesbian in a committed relationship of two-plus years. Like the family in the article, my partner and I hope to raise our children in Utah because here we have supportive and loving friends and extended family members.

I hope that people recognize that their doctrinal belief that two people of the same sex should not have the right to marry (more…)

Tribune Public Forum letter by Mike Coronella, Moab

Re “Utah not a colony of Washington, D.C., Herbert says ” (Tribune, Jan. 27):

Gov. Gary Herbert is crying (again) about our federal government. Does he have a clue what he’s talking about? Consider this from Article I of the Utah State Constitution: “The State of Utah is an inseparable part of the Federal Union and the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land.”

How is it that extreme Utah partisans believe such a radically different interpretation of our founding Constitution? Herbert seems (more…)

Transcript of Elder Dallin H. Oaks’ Speech Given at Chapman University School of Law

04 February 2011 — Salt Lake City

Transcript of Elder Dallin H. Oaks speech given at Chapman University School of Law on 4 February 2011.

Preserving Religious Freedom

I am here to speak of the state of religious freedom in the United States, why it seems to be diminishing, and what can be done about it.

Although I will refer briefly to some implications of the Proposition 8 controversy and its constitutional arguments, I am not here to participate in the debate on the desirability or effects of same-sex marriage. I am here to contend for religious freedom. I am here to describe fundamental principles that I hope will be meaningful for decades to come.

I believe you will find no unique Mormon doctrine in what I say. My sources are law and secular history. I will quote the words of Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Jewish leaders, among others. I am convinced that on this issue what all believers have in common is far more important than their differences. We must unite to strengthen our freedom to teach and exercise what we have in common, as well as our very real differences in religious doctrine.

We haven’t had a chance to carefully and thoughtfully review this speech by Elder Oaks and we will reserve comment until then. This is the transcript as made available by The Deseret News.

I begin with a truth that is increasingly challenged: Religious teachings and religious organizations are valuable (more…)

combined news services

Published: February 3, 2011 04:51PM

Rome • A U.N. agency reported Thursday that world food prices have reached a historic peak, but good harvests are — for now — forestalling the kind of food emergency felt in many places in 2008.

Rising food prices have been among the triggers for protests in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere.

“What is happening in northern Africa seems to be more political in nature,” said U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) economist and grain expert Abdolreza Abbassian. “Of course, we cannot ignore the food inflation as one of the elements of discontent.”

FAO said its food price index was up 3.4 percent in December from a month earlier — the seventh straight month of world food price increases.

“What will probably be identified as a major difference is the duration of the rise. It has been a long one, accompanied by strong volatility,” Abbassian said.

But he said the situation is “moderately more comfortable” than the crisis of 2008 because of strong harvests, which potentially “can help countries carry on until, hopefully, world markets settle down to normal levels.”

These escalating food prices could have been one of the catalysts that triggered the protests in Tunisia and Egypt. When the price of food is beyond the reach of the poor it is certainly going to cause dissatisfaction.

Still, Oxfam International, a confederation of organizations working to find solutions to poverty and injustice around the globe, said the FAO index “should ring alarm bells in (more…)

By Kirsten Stewart

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: February 4, 2011 08:08AM

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff handed legislative leaders two checks totaling $3.5 million on Thursday — money recouped through a legal settlement with prescription drug makers alleged to have overcharged Medicaid.

Congratulations for this diligent work. It takes time and effort to sort through all the requirements to build a case, which is way so many drug companies get away with it. Utah has collected an average of $9 million per year for the past five years.

However, once again there are no criminal charges for corporate executives. There is a different standard of justice for corporate executives and large companies. Attorney General Shurtleff thinks this ‘will teach them a lesson,’ but he knows and they know that the stockholders will pay the loss on the corporate gamble that they wouldn’t get caught. The corporate executives haven’t learned anything and won’t until their own hands get slapped.

Also, this is another example of the need for government. The corporately owned, anti-regulation legislatures at both the state and federal levels want to gut the staffs of all regulatory bodies and would prefer outright elimination of many.

Courtesy of Mylan Inc., Shering Corp. and Warrick Pharmaceutical Corp., the cash infusion comes as small, but welcome, relief to lawmakers who are looking to trim 7 percent from the state’s $11 billion budget. A good chunk of that spending, about $1.8 billion, is on Medicaid, with $155 million going for drugs.

But Shurtleff hopes it serves as a warning and “bitter pill” to drug (more…)

Justice courts rake in the money; critics say some courts just interested in collecting fines

By Lori Prichard and Kelly Just

KSL 5 News

Published: Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011 10:18 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — It was a shocking experience for Dena Long-Christensen, sitting in a cell in the Salt Lake County Jail for nearly two weeks among people charged with serious crimes.

Her cellmate, for example, was spending time on charges of aggravated assault. Long-Christensen’s crime? Selling flower baskets from her home.

“Instead of being further in shock, it was like, there’s something wrong with our country,” said the West Jordan woman.

Congratulations to the Deseret News on a well researched effort to inform the public about a chronic sore in the system. We usually have to rely on The Tribune for journalistic efforts that take time and talent to research and write, and so a special kudo to the Deseret News. It looks like the effort to combine news reports with KSL-TV has worked in this instance as the credit for the story is by-lined by KSL reporters. Since we seldom watch KSL it was good to get this report in the newspaper. It was also interesting to note the name of one of the reporters, ironically named Just.

Long-Christensen, 44, was sent to jail by a justice of West Jordan’s Municipal Court after a dispute over whether she had the proper permits under zoning law to operate her small nursery business out of her home.

A four-month investigation by KSL-TV discovered Long-Christensen’s case is but one of several examples of questionable activities (more…)

Breaking with her father, Barbara Bush voices support for gay marriage

By Holly Bailey

Tue Feb 1, 9:41 am ET

Barbara Bush, one of former President George W. Bush’s twin daughters, is appearing in a new video voicing her support for same sex marriage.

“I’m Barbara Bush, and I’m a New Yorker for marriage equality,” she says in a 22-second video released Monday by the Human Rights Campaign, a group that lobbies for equal treatment for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders.

“New York is about fairness and equality,” she says in the video. “And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love.”

The video ends with Bush, who is 29, imploring viewers to “join us.”

You can watch the video after the jump, courtesy the Human Rights Campaign.

Published on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 by GRITtv

Inequality Drives Egyptians to Streets, But Ours Worse

by Laura Flanders

It’s amazing what inequality can drive people to, eventually. Just look at Egypt.

“These big guys are stealing all the money,” one 24-year-old textile worker standing at his second job as a fruit peddler told a reporter [1] this weekend. “People are desperate.”

“I wish we could be like the United States with a democracy, but we cannot,” said another.

And so they protest, regardless of police batons, curfews and shootings. With over a 150 estimated dead, a march of millions is scheduled for Tuesday.

In spite of what some on Fox News (and the Israel lobby’s camp) sought to argue this weekend — namely that the protests were all the work of Islamist radicals — every report from the ground contradicts that. As in Tunisia, the protesters are driven by fury at poverty, lack of options, and the looting of their state by the super powerful.

It’s an equation we understand — elsewhere: a massive gap between rich and poor is inconsistent with democracy. But before you get carried away with third world conditions there, try here. On Friday a guest blogger at Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism blog [2] noted a remarkable fact: the U.S. actually has much greater inequality than Egypt—or Tunisia, or (more…)

Egyptian reform leader demands Mubarak resign

By HAMZA HENDAWI

and MAGGIE MICHAEL

The Associated Press

Published: January 30, 2011 05:49PM

Cairo • Egypt’s most prominent democracy advocate took up a bullhorn Sunday and called for President Hosni Mubarak to resign, speaking to thousands of protesters who defied a curfew for a third night. Fighter jets streaked low overhead and police returned to the capital’s streets — high-profile displays of authority over a situation spiraling out of control.

Watts Cookin’ will not follow the day-to-day developments in Egypt as events are moving much to quickly for us to track. We will, however, post significant developments as the long term narrative develops.

Right now the protesters are in charge, but they seem to be leaderless. ElBaradei is asserting himself toward that position, but Mubarak’s reign isn’t over yet. He may well save himself by declaring that he will lead the country to democracy in an orderly manner that will satisfy the people. We shall see.

In the meantime, U.S. policy is critical for the future. Obama seems to be taking the prudent ‘wait and see’ approach, positioning the U.S. for support of a democractic movement.

Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei’s appearance in Tahrir, or Liberation, Square underscored the jockeying for leadership of the mass protest movement that erupted seemingly out of nowhere in the past week to shake the Arab world’s most populous nation.

Now in their sixth day, the protests have come to be centered in the square, where demonstrators have camped since Friday. Up to 10,000 protesters gathered (more…)

By Lindsay Whitehurst

The Salt Lake Tribune

First published Jan 30 2011 04:23PM

A Canadian judge is now considering a landmark challenge to his country’s ban on polygamy as unconstitutional — a case being closely watched in Utah.

First, welcome to the Tribune Lindsay Whitehurst. This is the first story we’ve posted with her byline, and it is a big story. We will be following with keen interest.

Polygamy has been a legal question that has bothered Mormons since before statehood. For several generations many Mormons have been dismayed that they were forced to abandon polygamy by the government. To them, it was clearly an infringement of religious freedom and the argument isn’t without merit.

Testimony ended last week in the proceeding, sparked by the Canadian branch of a polygamous sect based in Utah. Since late November, British Columbia Chief Justice Robert Bauman has heard from nearly 20 witnesses — some of them Utahns — and taken many more affidavits and video testimonies about plural marriage.

The justice is expected to issue a ruling later this year on whether an anti-polygamy law dating to 1892 violates Canada’s guarantee of freedom of religion. The Utah Attorney General’s Office will be watching that ruling, said spokesman Paul Murphy.

“I think it will inform us,” he said. “Canada is tackling the same issues we have, in that we have this law but for the most part it hasn’t been enforced by any law enforcement agency.”

Utah’s bigamy law makes it a felony to marry or co-habitate with more than one husband or wife, though Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has focused on investigating crimes within polygamous groups rather than the practice itself.

Polygamists have also been observing the “historic” proceedings, said Marlyne Hammon, a member of the action committee for the polygamous community of Centennial Park, located just south of the Utah state line in Arizona.

“If Canada were to drop that law, it would send quite an important (more…)

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/01/28/financial-crisis-the-greatest-hits.aspx

Morgan Housel
January 28, 2011

“We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable,” says the official report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, released yesterday. “The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire.”

The committee’s report, two years in the making, is a 623-page tome of everything you could ever want to know about the financial crisis. Most of it is dry repetition of standard stuff reported ad nauseum over the past three years: Housing prices went up. Banks were idiots. The bubble popped. Hell broke loose.

But a few quotes caught my attention. Hopefully they will catch yours, too.

On regulation: We do not accept the view that regulators lacked the power to protect the financial system. They had ample power in many arenas and they chose not to use it. To give just three examples: the Securities and Exchange Commission could have required more capital and halted risky practices at the big investment banks. It did not. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and other regulators could have clamped down on Citigroup’s excesses in the run-up to the crisis. They did not. Policy makers and regulators could have stopped the runaway mortgage securitization train. They did not.

On trustworthy advice: More than 200,000 new mortgage brokers (more…)

Published on Friday, January 28, 2011 by CommonDreams.org Corporate Crime and No Punishment

by Russell Mokhiber

Leandro Andrade, 52, sits in Ironwood State Prison, about 200 miles east of Los Angeles, California.

He’s there for life.

What did Leandro do wrong?

In 1995, he stole five videotapes from a K-Mart in Ontario, California.

Under the state’s three strikes law, Andrade was sentenced to life in prison.

The first two offenses were for non violent home burglaries.

In 2003, 60 Minutes ran a profile of the Andrade case.

Andrade appealed his sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2003, in a 5-4 decision, the Court decided that the sentence wasn’t cruel and unusual.

And upheld the sentence.

Okay, let’s give the justice system it’s due.

Let’s say you can be sent away for life for stealing $153.54 worth of videotapes – a misdemeanor – if your first two convictions were felonies.

Question – what about the individual CEOs who headed the nation’s largest Wall Street firms and banks?

The ones involved in tanking the country’s economy and sending it into the great recession? What about them?

Leandro Adrade is in prison for life for stealing five videotapes.

What about the CEOs of the big Wall Street firms?

Why do they go free?

To find out, I went down to George Washington University this morning.

There, the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States was holding a press conference to release its final report.

Throughout the presentation, the members of the Commission were using words like – reckless, irresponsible, risky, and imprudent – to describe the actions of these Wall Street firms and their CEOs.

But nothing about crime.

Nothing about corporate (more…)

A Palestinian state within the 1967 borders: settlements vs. sovereignty

By Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. | President, Foundation for Middle East Peace

Today, few disagree that without massive withdrawals from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where over 500,000 settlers now live, there is no hope for a two-state peace. A majority of Israelis also agree that an end to the conflict, preservation of a democratic, Jewish Israel, and freedom and statehood for Palestinians, are impossible without a radical reversal of Israel’s misbegotten settlement adventure.

Philip Wilcox is one of the most respected Middle East experts and his suggestions and observations are always sought after by both sides of the question. Whenever you see his name you will know that there is serious constructive conversation taking place. So read on….

Most governments today believe that international law, including UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and the Fourth Geneva Convention outlawing settlements, should inform an agreement on a two-state border. The roadmap, which was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 1515, Quartet positions, and statements by the Obama administration concur that the starting point for creating a two-state peace should focus on the 1967 border.

Israel’s 43-year national project of settling the territory occupied in 1967 was designed to create “facts on the ground” that would maintain Israeli control and thwart Palestinian self-determination. Today, even Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says he accepts the need (more…)

By DANIEL WAGNER and MARCY GORDON, AP Business Writers Daniel Wagner And Marcy Gordon, Ap Business Writers – Thu Jan 27, 6:30 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A government panel’s failure to reach a firm conclusion about what caused the financial crisis shows how complex Wall Street has become and how partisan Washington has grown.

The blurriness of its report comes months after a new law already has begun tightening financial rules to prevent another crisis.

All of which raises a question: Do the findings of the 633-page report matter?

In its report, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blames a range of obvious culprits: Banks that made reckless bets. Credit rating agencies that endorsed risky mortgage bonds. Government regulators who overlooked danger signs until they threatened the global financial system.

This report is a big deal and should be carefully read with an open mind by everyone who cares about good government. This must never happen again and it is and was a foregone conclusion that lack of oversight and deregulation will reap the same damn catastrophe in the future. Those with a deregulation mind set should not be in charge of regulation. The financial crisis is a damning result of  ‘the religion of unregulated laissez faire capitalism.’

Until the Ayn Rand radicals get a grip on reality this nation must be en garde constantly.

It concludes that the crisis might have been prevented if banks had been more careful and regulators had asked tougher questions.

Those views have long since become mainstream in the more than two years since the crisis peaked. Yet among panel members, they sowed dissension. In the end, the commission’s six Democratic appointees embraced its conclusions. The four named by Republicans did not; they offered their own reasons for (more…)

Open Letter to President Obama:

Lower the Deficit! End $3B in Aid to Israel

The next federal government budget is scheduled to include a record-breaking appropriation of $3.075 billion in military aid to Israel, part of a ten-year agreement to provide $30 billion of weapons to Israel.

From moral, financial, and legal perspectives, the United States cannot afford to continue providing military aid to Israel to commit human rights abuses against and oppress Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and to deny them their rights to freedom and self-determination.

I strongly urge you to end military aid to Israel as a sanction for its obstinate refusal to abide by UN resolutions, human rights standards, and international law in its apartheid policies toward the Palestinian people.

We cannot afford to be complicit any longer in providing Israel high-velocity tear gas canisters to injure and kill Palestinians civilians nonviolently protesting the theft of their land. We cannot afford to be complicit any longer in providing Israel armored bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes and raze Palestinian agriculture to clear land for illegal Israeli settlements.  We cannot afford to be complicit any longer in providing Israel the guns, ammunition, tanks, missiles, naval vessels, helicopters, and fighter jets used to impose an inhumane and illegal blockade on the 1.5 million Palestinian civilians of the Gaza Strip.

We cannot afford to be so munificent in providing Israel with the weapons of war it needs to destroy Palestinian infrastructure, especially while our schools, roads, and other basic infrastructure (more…)

January 26, 2011

Voucher Program Would Undermine Civil Rights And Civil Liberties And Add To The Budget Deficit

by Barry Lynn, Executive Director, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to subsidize religious schools in the District of Columbia would undercut civil rights and civil liberties and add to the federal budget deficit, while failing to improve education, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Boehner has announced that today he will unveil a bill that would resurrect and expand the controversial experimental D.C. voucher program, which pays for tuition at private schools for some students in Washington, D.C.

Americans United says the Boehner move is seriously misguided.

There is a great big DETOUR sign that warns of danger whenever government wanders into the religious realm—but reading isn’t one of the Tea Party’s favorite things to do, and danger is just their call to arms.

The country survived the John Birch Society and we will survive its reincarnation in the form of the Tea Party, but not without lots of cuts and bruises. These guys intend to do some damage.

“I can’t imagine a worse time to unveil a new federal subsidy for religious schools,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “This proposal would add to the federal budget deficit while subsidizing schools that indoctrinate and discriminate in hiring.

“Public funds should be directed toward improving public schools, not private schools (more…)

by Michael Keegan

The Huffington Post

Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled to the Capitol to teach a class about the Constitution to members of Congress, led by controversial Tea Party caucus chairwoman Michele Bachmann. Justice Scalia’s participation in Bachmann’s Constitution school has prompted a heated debate about the proper relationship between Supreme Court justices and political leaders. But the real debate that should be raging is not about judicial ethics, but about the dubious vision of the Constitution that Scalia and leaders of the Tea Party will be discussing.

As Jonathan Turley pointed out in the Washington Post this weekend, while Supreme Court Justices across the ideological spectrum have taken on increasingly prominent public roles, Scalia has become a true “celebrity justice.” But Scalia’s pugnacious celebrity is in service of a distorted and bizarre reinterpretation of the Constitution championed by the Tea Party movement.

More bizarreness coming from the Tea Party. This stuff is straining credulity. What is our country coming to?

Although the Tea Party seeks to wrap the Constitutional founding in religious doctrine and intention, this view conveniently ignores the Establishment Clause, the clause forbidding religious tests for public office, and the fact that neither the Bible nor God is mentioned in the Constitution’s text. Meanwhile, the Tea Party’s Constitution offers very few of the hard-won protections ensuring equal rights and liberties for all Americans, and all but eliminates the power of government to protect and empower its citizens in interstate commerce. Tea Party candidates across America in 2010 also called for repeal of the 16th Amendment (making federal income taxation possible), the 17th Amendment (providing for direct popular election of U.S. Senators), and parts of the 14th Amendment.

Bachmann’s Constitution classes are not so much an introduction to the founding documents, but to a new interpretation of the Constitution that mirrors the Tea Party’s radical political agenda.

Scalia, a star proponent of selective originalism, in many ways is the perfect professor to teach this school of constitutional philosophy. Scalia’s originalist philosophy is perhaps best summarized by his attitude toward the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. He has asserted that the equal protection clause, originally meant to ensure black Americans the full rights of citizenship, was never meant to ensure equal rights for women or gay people. Yet, in one of the most famous (more…)

Genelle Pugmire – Daily Herald | Posted: Saturday, January 22, 2011 12:25 am

Israeli Consul General Jacob Dayan stepped up to the podium at Utah Valley University to applause and stepped down to chants of protest on Friday.

Dayan addressed the need for the United States to stay strong and to continue its relationship with Israel as global changes occur.

“The U.S. needs to continue to be a leader. It is important for Israel to have a strong U.S. because we share U.S. values,” he said. “A perception of a weak U.S. hurts Israel. It is vital to see leadership in the U.S.”

In the audience there was a negative undercurrent as he talked of Israel being the only democracy in the region where there are equal rights and freedom of speech and where women are treated as equals.

Colleges and universities are becoming the bulwark of freedom in our country. It is where truth is forced into the open and authorities face true public scrutiny.

Congratulations to The Daily Herald for being at the speech and giving a full report, including those who would not let the propaganda stand unchallenged.

“Everyone at the end of the day wants freedom of speech,” he said. “I believe the revolution in the Arab world will come from the women.” He emphasized the difference between democratic Israel and the rest of nations in the region regarding the treatment of women.

Prior, during and after the talk, pamphlets, maps and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were passed to the audience declaring Israel an Apartheid state in references to its practices in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza.

A handful of people in the audience of about 100 raised questions about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. He was asked if Palestinians in these areas have rights to own homes, move freely and (more…)