Anne Rice, the bestselling novelist with a reputation for her religiosity, has quit being a Christian. She announced it on her Facebook account and her message has created quite a stir.

Rice declared on her Facebook account:

“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t:  Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always, but not to being a Christian or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to belong to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

“I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

As expected, pro and con comments are appearing all over the internet. On Watts Cookin Blpg we have posted a column by Leonard Pitts on the subject. We will post others as well as comments.

Utah to receive $101 million for education, save more than 1,400 teacher jobs

By Joseph M. Dougherty and Elizabeth Stuart

Deseret News

Published: Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010 12:12 a.m. MDT

WASHINGTON — With President Barack Obama’s signature on the $26 billion stimulus bill for education and Medicaid on Tuesday, Utah stands to nab about $101 million for education for fiscal 2011.

Though that number is just 1 percent of the $10 billion allocated for education funding nationwide, it could save the jobs of 1,400 to 1,500 teachers in Utah, according to state estimates, and up to 1,800 teachers, according to federal estimates.

Republicans are opposed to this good news. It boggles the mind! They would rather give a tax cut to the rich than keep our kids in teachers. Such distorted values!

Both the U.S. House and Senate passed the bill this month, with the House’s vote taking place Tuesday afternoon before a copy of the bill was taken up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

The votes in both houses happened nearly along party lines, with the Democrats supporting the bill Continue reading…

A bad same-sex ruling

Deseret News

Published: Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010 12:15 a.m. MDT

Proponents of gay marriage have managed to frame the issue as one of equal treatment under the law, often asking opponents to demonstrate how the marriage of two men or two women could cause harm to anyone else’s heterosexual marriage.

This is an entirely wrong and misleading framework and question. The more relevant question ought to be why governments have an interest in sanctioning marriages at all.

This editorial, The Deseret News, and the LDS Church are willfully skirting the issues that faced the court in a continuing attempt to rationalize their opposition to same-sex marriage.

Repeat the same old saw enough times, and offer enough smokescreens, and it’s amazing how many brain waves can be shut down.

The issue is a constitutional issue of equal protection under the law. The courts have continually told opponents of same-sex marriage that it is unconstitutional to deny homosexuals equal protection under the law. In America we don’t hold elections to determine our right to equal protection. In order to deny equal protection to anyone we would have to change the constitution. Proposition 8 was a blatant unconstitutional effort to deny equal protection of the laws to gays and lesbians. The courts have ruled on this subject time and again and still the opponents haven’t gotten the message. It is not just Justice Vaughn Walker. It began in 1993 when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny equal protection under the law to gays and lesbians. Judges are bound by the law to uphold equal protection of the laws.  Judges have never had a compelling reason to deny equal protection of the law to gays and lesbians. Bigotry simply isn’t a compelling reason and it is the basis of all the arguments offered in opposition to same-sex marriage. Opponents just can’t muster up any other defense and while bigotry can cut it at the ballot box, it can’t cut it in the courts.

The answer to that one is clear. Because of their concern for the general welfare, governments have a compelling interest in sanctioning behaviors designed to perpetuate order and progress. With that in mind, they have an interest in sanctioning the only kind of sexual relations best designed to lead to healthy children being raised in a way that gives them the greatest chance for success as adults. That is through the marriage of one man and one woman.

The fact that some married people can’t have children is irrelevant. The fact that many marriages break up or that some children of marriages are abused does not change the argument. People are inherently flawed. There also are extraordinary citizens who were raised in single-parent or nontraditional homes. But the man-woman marriage template remains the best chance for children and the only type of relationship the state ought to have an interest in sanctioning. Governments typically don’t sanction every man-woman union, either. First cousins, for example, often are forbidden to marry, again because of the possible effects on children such a union might produce.

Most Americans, it seems, understand all this. Certainly, most Californians did when they passed Proposition 8. So did voters in 30 other states, most recently Maine. Same-sex marriage has lost every time it has been put to a vote in this country. Even state legislatures in some typically liberal states, such as New York, have defeated the idea.

But now Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco has Continue reading…

The AIG Bailout Scandal

William Greider | August 6, 2010

The Nation Magazine

The government’s $182 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG should be seen as the Rosetta Stone for understanding the financial crisis and its costly aftermath. The story of American International Group explains the larger catastrophe not because this was the biggest corporate bailout in history but because AIG’s collapse and subsequent rescue involved nearly all the critical elements, including delusion and deception. These financial dealings are monstrously complicated, but this account focuses on something mere mortals can understand—moral confusion in high places, and the failure of governing institutions to fulfill their obligations to the public.

Three governmental investigative bodies have now pored through the AIG wreckage and turned up disturbing facts—the House Committee on Oversight and Reform; the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which will make its report at year’s end; and the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), which issued its report on AIG in June.

The five-member COP, chaired by Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, has produced the most devastating and comprehensive account so far. Unanimously adopted by its bipartisan members, it provides alarming insights that should be fodder for the larger debate many citizens long to hear—why Washington rushed to forgive the very interests that produced this mess, while innocent others were made to suffer the consequences. The Congressional panel’s critique helps explain why bankers and their Washington allies do not want Elizabeth Warren to chair the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The report concludes that the Federal Reserve Board’s intimate relations with the leading powers of Wall Street—the same banks that benefited most from the government’s massive bailout—influenced its strategic decisions on AIG. The panel accuses the Fed and the Treasury Department of brushing aside alternative approaches that would have saved tens of billions in public funds by making these same banks “share the pain.”

Bailing out AIG effectively meant rescuing Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch (as well as a dozens of European banks) from huge losses. Those financial institutions played the derivatives game with AIG, the esoteric practice of placing financial bets on future events. AIG lost its bets, which led to its collapse. But other gamblers—the counterparties in AIG’s derivative deals—were made whole on their bets, paid off 100 cents on the dollar. Taxpayers got stuck with the bill.

“The AIG rescue demonstrated that Treasury and the Federal Reserve would commit taxpayers to pay any price and bear any burden to prevent the collapse of America’s largest financial institutions,” the COP report said. This could have been avoided, the report argues, if the Fed had listened to disinterested advisers with a less parochial understanding of the public interest.

Fed and Treasury officials dismiss this critique as second-guessing of tough decisions they had to make in the fall of 2008, amid the fast-moving global crisis. Yet two years later, those controversial decisions remain highly relevant. Public anger has not abated. It fuels the election turmoil that this year threatens to bring down incumbents in both parties who voted for bank bailouts.

Although the AIG bailout was carried out in the waning days of George W. Bush’s presidency, the popular sense of injustice has deeply scarred Barack Obama, since he too adopted a forgiving approach toward culpable financial interests. Obama came to office intent on restoring public trust in government. His indulgence of the mega-banks led to the opposite result.

More to the point, the AIG story raises real doubts and suspicions Continue reading…

Editorial: Immigration is about us

Mark H. Willes

Deseret Media Companies

Published: Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010 9:15 p.m. MDT

Over the last few weeks, we have run a series of special reports on immigration in print, on television and radio, and on our multiple websites. We have tried hard to fairly represent all points of view. We have also tried to separate fact from fiction, hyperbole from reality.

This is a nice start on a very difficult and complex issue. The editorial serves one important purpose; to slow down the hot heads and put rational thinking on the front burner. The editorial offers few concrete suggestions—except a thoughtful and caring approach to all decisions. While some will be bothered by its lack of specific solutions it does bring us back to the proper starting place—-rational thinking.

We are pleased that many have told us they are now thinking more deeply about the complex issues involved. We, too, have found ourselves struggling to know exactly what to do. Lives, jobs, safety and much more are at stake. In fact, the very core of what kind of people we are, and what kind of state we want to have, will be reflected in and strongly influenced by how we deal with immigration.

Common threads

Several common threads have emerged from our reporting on immigration:

People on all sides of the issue have uncommon courage. The debate has become so heated, the rancor so great, that anyone who takes a strong stand has been subject to withering criticism. We greatly admire all those who have added to the public dialogue by sharing their views, no matter the personal cost.

Virtually everyone agrees that current circumstances surrounding immigration must be fixed. While areas of emphasis differ, almost no one is happy with the way things are.

Almost everyone also agrees that illegal immigrants who are felons should be caught, prosecuted and sent out of the country.

There is also consensus that to be effective, there must be a national solution to the challenges of immigration. Utahns of all points of view eagerly seek national leadership to find effective, workable solutions, sooner rather than later.

Finally, there seems to be a broadly held view that Utah, like Arizona, should do something, if only to help speed up federal action.

No easy solutions

The problem, of course, is that complex problems do not lend themselves to easy solutions: Continue reading…

By Carrie A. Moore

Deseret News

Published: Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010 10:46 p.m. MDT

SALT LAKE CITY — Jeanne Pudoff-Oyen has been depressed for more than a decade. Not the “I wish I’d been a better (fill-in-the-blank),” kind of depression, but the “living inside this black cloud I want to kill myself” kind of chronic depression that doesn’t respond to traditional therapy or medication.

But a new treatment now available at the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute looks to provide new hope for patients like Pudoff-Oyen, who haven’t found relief from their depression using medication.

In fact, Pudoff-Oyen says that transcranial magnetic stimulation “literally saved my life,” after she had tried every medication and dosage available, to no avail.

TMS was approved for treating depression by the Food and Drug Administration in 2008, according to Dr. Howard Weeks, a psychiatrist who is believed to be the first in the state to Continue reading…

By Mark Stibich, Ph.D., About.com Guide

Updated April 26, 2009

About.com Health’s Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board

Why is Dark Chocolate Healthy?:

Chocolate is made from plants, which means it contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids¹, which act as antioxidants². Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals³, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure⁴ through the production of nitric oxide⁵, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Note: Stay up-to-date on longevity and anti-aging with my weekly newsletter⁶.

Heart Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Dark chocolate is good for your heart. A small bar of it everyday can help keep your heart⁷ and cardiovascular system running well. Two heart health benefits of dark chocolate are:

• Lower Blood Pressure:⁸ Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure.
• Lower Cholesterol:⁹ Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent.

Other Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Chocolate also holds benefits apart from protecting your heart:

• it tastes good
• it stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure
• it contains serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant
• it contains theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

Doesn’t Chocolate Have a lot of Fat?:

Here is some more good news — some of the fats in chocolate do not impact your cholesterol. The fats in chocolate are 1/3 oleic acid, 1/3 stearic acid and 1/3 palmitic acid:

• Oleic Acid is a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.
• Stearic Acid is a saturated fat but one which research is shows has a neutral effect on cholesterol.
• Palmitic Acid is also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.

That means only 1/3 of the fat in dark chocolate is bad for you.

Chocolate Tip 1 – Balance the Calories:

This information doesn’t mean that you should eat a pound of chocolate a day. Chocolate is still a high-calorie, high-fat food. Most of the studies done used no more than 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate a day to get the benefits.

One bar of dark chocolate has around Continue reading…