The title of this post is a hat tip to bbell over at MM who blogged about this subject .  bbell wrote his post at the time when Dominique Strauss-Kahn (“DSK”) the then powerful head of the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”), and putative front-runner in the race for president of France, was arrested for sexually assaulting the maid in his New York hotel room.  (more…)

This topic has come up several times in the last year because I know a lot of people living very different lives. Some of my friends/acquaintances are believers with rock solid testimonies and others stopped attending church years ago. Some drink, some have sex outside of marriage, some watch pron, some had abortions, some cheated on their spouses and others play by the LDS rulebook but don’t believe the LDS Church is God’s church.

All of them, despite the things they do or don’t do, consider themselves Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints even though your gut might be telling you they’re not.

So who decides? Do you think you’re qualified to say?

I know I’m not qualified.

The Tea Party as a phenomenon in American Politics is interesting from a political-science point of view but just about everything about its effects on American politics is disastrous.  It seems to enshrine the most extreme and paranoid of all American political instincts and attempts to turn them into virtues.  Tea Partiers are the most likely of any political activists to believe the most insane and provably false things about President Obama, the economy, taxes, the U.S. Constitution, the environment, science in general, you name it.   The movement seems to rely on gossip over facts, heated rhetoric over political discussion, and especially thrives on ignorance over education.  The movement has no central leader or leadership (by choice) but has rallied behind candidates and political figures like Rand Paul and Michelle Bachmann, while getting major rhetorical support from Rush Limbaugh and other similar demagogues. (more…)