Can a good Mormon be a Democrat Survey

Apparently, less active Utah Mormons are almost twice as likely to believe that a good Mormon can't be a Democrat as are active Mormons. Any ideas on what can explain that? Granted, it would be nice to know sample size on this survey, and it's very limited geographically, but it's still an interesting result.

The Killing

So, AMC has a new show--The Killing. It's a dark, Scandinavia-influenced detective story that takes place in Seattle. Very good (consistent with AMC TV shows within the last few years, and perhaps even better). And the lead actor, Mireille Enos, is apparently LDS. With the possible exception of Dollhouse (where the lead actor was raised LDS), this is the only TV show I know of with that distinction.

Did I mention it's good?

Amazon might still have the first two episodes for free. If you're into good TV, and aren't turned off by the PG-13 nature (did I mention it's dark?) you're in for a treat.

The move

So, we've decided to move.

The economy is horrible right now for new graduates. I'm attending a quality law school, and, under most circumstances, law school graduates from the University of Cincinnati have no problem finding good jobs. Large law firms, mid-sized firms, small law firms, judicial clerkships, government jobs--not a problem. Heck, we even had ourselves a president (President Taft) and Supreme Court Chief Justice (ummm--Chief Justice Taft) back in the day. And we're still the most-respected law school in the Cincinnati area.

Problem is, no one's hiring, except for the government. The Cincinnati branch of the firm I'm clerking at just laid off two of their seven attorneys. Most of my classmates can't find work. Those that have found work either have good connections (we're talking life-long family connections here) or fantastic law school grades (top 15% of the class--where I'm at--apparently don't cut it).

Last year was the same--and I think the lack of jobs led to UC Law's drop in the Law School rankings. Still decently ranked, but a bit lower than when I first entered. I think Ohio is dying. Good grades, two years of Law Review, fantastic job experience (two years clerking for a mid-sized firm), and a (rare in law) science/medicine background aren't good enough for me to be hired in this economy, so we've decided to pick up and move. Better to be jobless and be close to family than to be jobless and isolated.

I think the job market is a little better out West. April's from Idaho Falls, so we've decided to move out there as soon as I graduate. I sent in my Idaho bar application today, and I'll take the bar there in late July. Hopefully the fact that I'll be living in Idaho will be a big help in finding a job there--employers are more likely to ask for an interview when you're already in the area.

We move right after graduation, in mid-May. So we're packing, I'm looking into getting a two-way radio and a wireless FM modulator (April will have a CD player in the car while I'll be driving the moving truck, so I need my music to keep me going), and we're looking into how to get the cheapest moving truck. And, of course, I'm still looking for job openings out there. Wish us luck.

Immigration Reform in Utah

Utah has actually gone forward and passed sensible immigration reform. Presiding LDS Bishop, Bishop Burton, spoke at the signing ceremony.

"Our presence here testifies to the fact that we are appreciative of what has happened in the Legislature this session...We feel the Legislature has done an incredible job on a very complex issue.” (Quoted from the Salt Lake Tribune).

LDS anti-immigration types who opposed the immigration reform weren't as happy, with statements ranging from full-blown denial to what looks like apostasy.

“I am shocked that the church would support a bill that literally sacrifices 50,000 Utah children, who are the victims of identity theft, for the benefit of illegal aliens...The church has sent so many conflicting messages, I just don’t know where they are coming from.” (Ron Mortenson, Center For Immigration Studies).

Actually, the church has not sent conflicting messages. If you believe they've been sending conflicting messages about immigration, you haven't been paying attention. They supported the Utah Compact, after all.

“David Burton has a right to be present or to be involved in any affairs concerning the faith, but he does not speak for the First Presidency.” (Morales-LLan, head of Legal Immigrants for Immigration Law Enforcement).

Actually, it sounds like he was there on behalf of the First Presidency, and so he does speak for them.

Wonder how Russell Pearce, the LDS Arizona state senator who was the leading force behind Arizona's extreme anti-immigrant laws, feels about this?

Don't get me wrong. Members of the church have a right to believe what they want to. It's just fun to see these people "shocked" by the actions of the church. They continue to get notice that the measures they support--measures such as driving all illegal immigrants from the country--don't conform with the church's stance on the matter.

Best free online place to store pictures

We store our pictures on our PC, and sometimes I'll copy those pictures to a CD. However, I've decided I need an easier way to provide backup in case our PC crashes. What's the best online place to do this? (I'm thinking along the lines of Flickr, etc.)

What I'm looking for:

1. Easy copying (we use a Kodak software, and it would be great if I could copy whole folders of pictures).

2. Reliability

3. No degradation of picture quality (so, for example, if we upgrade to a better camera with more megapixels, I want to be able to save that same quality online).

Any recommendations?

Between Family and Beliefs

I have an LDS friend here in Cincinnati who is very outspoken about his beliefs regarding gay marriage. He sends out mass emails on the subject, attends rallies that support the traditional family structure, and writes blogs about the subject matter. He was even interviewed at one of the rallies he attended, and he told the journalist that he had a gay brother but he was still fighting against gay marriage. The gay brother found out about the interview, got mad, and, needless to say, stopped talking to my friend.

Meanwhile, I myself find myself occasionally getting into arguments with my parents. For example, they donate considerable amounts of money to a conservative Christian group that refuses to hire Mormons because they don't fit the group's definition of Christian. I should have probably just brought up that fact and then let it go (although even bringing it up made my mother raving mad). But I was a bit surprised that my parents defended this bigoted group, so I kept arguing with my mother about it.

I think many of us are involved in things that can cause conflict within the family. Where do we draw the line on our involvement? Do we go all-out and get into full-blown arguments and attend rallies that directly attack our family members? In other words, do we put our causes, often good causes, and place them ahead of our family relationships? If we want to have strong family relationships, we need to make those relationships a priority.

My mom's family sets a good example. Two of her siblings are not active in the LDS church. One is what I'd call a fundamentalist Christian (not sure of the denomination). The other went inactive--although I hear he's attending church now. Despite the differences in belief, the family is still close-knit. It hasn't torn the family apart like it could have. And that, I believe, is a good thing. Family is, after all, more important than causes.

TV update

"Justified" is back and should be showing up on Hulu shortly. I consider it the best show on TV. Very smart. And a new show, "Chicago Code," is looking pretty decent. Cop show about getting rid of government corruption. You can check out reviews on www.metacritic.com, one of my new favorite websites.

Chuck's gone downhill ever since Chuck gained physical superpowers. Not sure if I'll continue watching. White Collar is decent.
The Cape is a disappointment, as is No Ordinary Family.
Rubicon was canceled (I still highly recommend the slow-pace thriller).

We had a couple of years of great TV, and now it feels like it's gone downhill again. Guess I'll go back to watching my X-Files DVDs again.

Help me out--what else is good out there? Doesn't necessarily need to be current.

Mormon for President, 2012

If you haven't heard, Romney's not the only Mormon with aspirations for the Presidency in 2012. Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah and Ambassador to China (who also happens to have exquisite tastes in music--in other words, a progressive rock fan) also apparently has aspirations for 2012. Now I happen to think that it's probably just a test run for 2016, and I don't think a moderate Republican has much of a chance of winning the primaries in 2012 (although I would argue that a moderate Republican is the only one that would be able to beat Obama).

Anyway, that brings me to a wonderful little graph that details Republican contenders for 2012. Take a look.



The good news is, Romney and Huntsman are both sane. The bad news--only three of the 13 contenders are sane, and there's doubt as to whether the majority of people voting in the Republican primary will vote for a sane candidate. And then there's the problem of religious bigotry in the South, which would probably seriously hurt two of the three sane candidates. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Henry Eyring

You've probably heard stories about him in General Conference and the Ensign, from President Eyring, President Faust, Elder Hales, and others. He was a rather accomplished man.

I won't discuss his childhood, although it was certainly an eventful one.

He was a successful scientist. I don't mean successful in that he taught and did research at a prestigious university (although he did). I mean successful in that he pioneered modern chemistry. He developed the transition state theory. If you've taken a college chemistry class, you probably learned about his discovery.

He was also married to President Kimball's sister and served on the Church's Sunday School General Board (basically the modern version of the church's Sunday School Presidency). Not a general authority, but still in the upper levels of church leadership. His son, of course, is currently in the First Presidency.

Eyring, however, was a bit of a black sheep. I've taken the following account from "Reflections of a Scientist," written by Eyring and published by Deseret Book (out of print, but available on Kindle). President Joseph Fielding Smith, at the time the President of the Twelve, had published his views on some aspects of science, including the age of the earth. Eyring, a prominent chemist, knew how radioactive elements decay. He knew the science behind determining the age of the earth. And he absolutely disagreed with the President of the Twelve's views. President Smith's book was being considered for use as an institute manual at the highest levels. Eyring was worried about educated young members leaving the church over the issue. Eyring recounts, "[T]he next time I went to Sunday School General Board meeting, I got up and bore my testimony that the evidence was strongly in the direction that the world was four or five billion years old."

Not too surprisingly, that same week President Smith invited Eyring in for a little talk. They basically agreed to disagree. Eyring stated of President Smith, "I would say that I sustained President Smith as my church leader one hundred percent. I think he was a great man. He had a different background and training on this issue. Maybe he was right. I think he was right on most things, and if you followed him, he would get you into the celestial kingdom." (Page 53).

Eyring, in his book, then went on to discuss the chemistry and geology supporting an old earth (including discounting "the notion that the earth has been assembled, relatively recently, from the wreckage of earlier worlds"). (Page 54). He also discusses evolution (page 59), but that's an issue for another post.

So what can we take away from this? I think two main things. First, our church leaders are good men, and if we follow them, we will get into the celestial kingdom. And second, that our church leaders aren't necessarily perfect, and may occasionally get things wrong. If we expect them to be perfect, we will ultimately be disappointed.

Tax Time

Taxes. I'm too cheap to have someone else doing them--plus, since we're dirt poor, companies offer us free tax software through irs.gov.

I calculated taxes without the software, and then used the software and found that I was off by $1000 for my return. So I heartily recommend the software, if just because it may catch things you miss (or mistakenly believe you aren't eligible for).

At the same time, however, the software isn't perfect. I reworked my taxes and found that if I decreased my return by $4, I could also significantly decrease my AGI, which is used to calculate state taxes. Yes, I don't get as much back with the feds, but I end up paying significantly less state tax. I haven't figured out the savings yet, but it's fairly significant. If you have the ability to choose between two options when doing taxes, you might want to run both options and consider state taxes into the mix. Don't trust the software completely.

Don't forget Schedule M this year, and, if you have kids, the EIC, the child tax credit, and the additional child tax credit. Also, don't forget you can take both the exemption and the standard (or itemized) deduction. Here's hoping you have a good tax return.

New radio program

I just ran across a new program on an online radio station. The program is called "Insights," and the first episode features "a leading authority on Islam and the Arab world (who) discusses the roots of Islam and gives us a better understanding of the Arab culture today."

The second episode--a favorite of mine--focuses on biology. "Dr. Dennis Shiozawa...shares his research into fresh-water fish. Learn how biologists track species and map DNA to better understand gene pools, evolution, (and) our effect on our environment."

Evolution, environmentalism, and a positive Islam/Muslim approach. Is it an offshoot of NPR? A liberal media radio station? Something produced by some university somewhere? Nope.

The program is "Insights" and it's produced by...wait for it...the LDS church. The radio station is "The Mormon Channel," and it's the official radio station of the church.

Another great series cancelled

This time it's "Rubicon." An AMC series with great characters and great suspense. Because the show itself is not action-packed, the occasional action that does happen is actually intense. I'm said to see it go. I highly recommend it. Maybe it will become big in a year or two and they'll make a follow-up movie...
A very unique show. I'm not happy it's over.

Another AMC series, "The Walking Dead" is also (surprisingly, as it's a zombie TV show) fairly good. Expect a fair amount of gore, though.

Seeing these shows makes me wonder if any other AMC shows are worth watching. Anyone seen any?

And "Justified" returns in February.

By the way, we'll be visiting Utah for the holidays. If any of you are around, maybe we can do a game night or something.

New Church Website

Check out the new changes to the church website. I've heard rumors they'd finally update the ward memberships to the 21st century--and now they have. You can place your picture there, individual phone numbers for individual members of the family, etc.

Merry Christmas! And about time--especially since most families have more than one telephone number.

Tax Increases

The Bush tax cuts are about to expire, and Congress is planning on extending those tax cuts, at least for those who make under $250,000 a year. Democrats want to pass a law permanently extending those cuts for those who make under $250,000; Republicans want to extend those cuts for everyone, including the super-rich. Now it looks like the Democrats will give in to Republicans, and extend the cuts for everyone.

Why?

Why don't the Democrats present a bill extending tax cuts to everyone but the wealthy, and see if it passes? They can then present an entirely separate bill extending tax cuts to just the wealthy. Two separate simple bills. The result, of course, would be extending the tax cuts for the vast majority of us (with the support of almost all the politicians) but not for the super-rich. Any Republican who voted against a bill for tax cuts for the middle class because a tax cut for the super-rich isn't in the same bill would be (rightly) reviled.
Keep in mind that a tax cut to those who make under $250,000 is also a tax cut to the first $250,000 of the super-rich due to the way taxes are scaled.
Maybe they could compromise by extending tax cuts to those who make under $500,000 a year.

In any case, I don't understand discussions of giving people who don't know how many houses they own tax cuts. While we do need to control spending (especially for Medicare, Social Security and defense spending--the biggest costs), we also need to provide for more revenue coming in. Taxing those who can afford a little more tax seems like the best way to go.

Church's Stance on Immigration

Just wanted to make sure word got out about the church's recent statement about immigration. The link is here.

From the language of the Utah Compact, which the church supports:

"Immigration is a federal policy issue between the U.S. government and other countries — not Utah and other countries."

Too many members of the church favor Arizona-type immigration laws (including the man behind the Arizona laws). They should know their church doesn't agree with them.

Video card question

So, my computer has a very weak video card (it's a Vostro, created for business needs, and so the video card has a hard time handling some games). My current video card is Intel(R) G45/G43 Express Chipset. My desktop is a Vostro 220. I've been trying to study up on what video card would work for my needs; I need at least a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 (around $40 on ebay).

My two questions: first, I don't want to mess with getting another power source. How do I find out what watts my computer has, and what video cards would be compatible with that? From what I've read online, a Vostro 220 claims 300 watts, and the 6800 claims that it's 350 watts, but most people say that, as Dell underestimates the power and most video cards overestimate the power, mixing 300 with 350 should work. However, I couldn't find reports of anyone combining a Vostro 220 with a NVIDIA GeForce 6800. And I'm not sure how I can confirm that my computer's power is 300 watts.

And second, where is a good reliable place to buy?

What's worse than attack ads? Fearmongering racist attack ads

Like most of you, we've been pelted by numerous political attack ads these last few weeks. I'm not a fan of attack ads, as they focus on anger and fearmongering rather than on logic or ideas, but I didn't think they were a big deal until I got one attacking Boyce, an African American man running for state treasurer, that managed to combine the attack aspect with things like "his lobbyist friend Mohammed Noure Alo" and "Boyce hired Mohammed Noure Alo's wife for a sensitive position in the Treasurer's office, after advertising the job only at their Mosque." Then, of course, the big question: "Do you trust these guys with your hard-earned dollars?"

Look, attack ads are pretty standard. But an attack ad that stresses Muslim-sounding names and stresses that a job was advertised at a Mosque (while being intentionally vague about whether "their" referred to Boyce, and thus insinuating that Boyce, a Christian, is actually a Muslim) takes things a step too far. (Interestingly enough, Boyce's competitor is not a Christian--he's Jewish).

I wish I could find the ad online (although the TV ads apparently send the same message).

Smelling a skunk, I did some digging. Turns out that "Mohammed" goes by "Noure"--but, of course, they had to give the full name when referring to him, just like far-right wackos always say "Barack Hussein Obama." And, of course, many of the allegations made are apparently not true.

His competitor's reaction to any backlash against the anti-Muslim attack ad, and that an insinuation was made that Boyce was Muslim? He plead innocent. "Again, that I know of, I don’t think the word Muslim was ever in it.” And I'm sure you had no intention of scaring away voters by creating an attack ad criticizing Boyce's friendships with Muslims, either.

Before I received the ad, I didn't really care too much about who won this particular fight. But now I'm definitely rooting for Boyce. We don't need anymore racist, xenophobic fearmongerers in political offices. We need rational, thoughtful people. People who don't fear and hate American Muslims, and people who don't use the public's fear of American Muslims to get votes.

When a word matters

Some of you were a bit stunned by Elder Packer's talk in conference where he said "Some suppose that they were pre-set, and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so. Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, he is our Father."

Fortunately, it looks like you weren't the only ones a bit surprised by the language. I'm not sure if his words were just a mistake or his personal opinion, but the words of his talk have changed, just slightly, on the church website. The changes alter the entire meaning of that section of the talk. The revised talk reads: "Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn temptations toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Remember, God is our Heavenly Father."

Besides getting rid of the "Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone," the change gets rid of "tendencies" and replaces it with "temptations." Granted, it doesn't make as much sense anymore (what are inborn temptations?) But the underlying message--that all homosexuals can overcome their homosexual tendencies--has changed.

Unfortunately, whether accidental or intentional, considerable damage has already been done. Many people who heard the talk (or who read about it elsewhere) will never read the version on the church website (or the version that will most likely appear in the Ensign). But at least we have those resources to counter people who argue that the church states that homosexuals can overcome their homosexual tendencies. The church does not state that. Elder Packer said it in conference, true, but it appears as if the church officially disagrees with him or that his words came out wrong.

See here for the revised talk. I'll let you find the original language on your own.

What I'm Watching

Justified--unfortunately not back until January, but my favorite current show. Cop show based in Kentucky--and very smart.

White Collar--also taking a break. FBI agent and a con-artist on a leash solve crime.

Chuck--Goofy fun.

Nikita--a U.S. spy organization goes rogue, and one of their ex-employees starts sabotaging their missions. Just three episodes so far--we'll see if it keeps my attention.

The Event--the first episode plays like the first episode of Flash Forward. This is the only new sci-fi I've seen this season that's decent. I'll keep watching and see where it goes.

Rubicon--slow-moving thriller. I am a fan. Unfortunately, you have to buy to see more than 2 episodes. My favorite new show--and I'll probably actually end up buying it. Second only to "Justified" for my favorite current TV.

Recommendations: watch the first 2 episodes of Rubicon. And then watch Justified when it comes back on.

Any other recommendations?

Credit Card Fraud and German Risk

Two topics here.

First, if anyone is interested in playing a Game of German Risk online, let me know. It's pretty relaxed--you have a full 24 hours to take a turn. No 3 or 4 hour block of time required, just a couple minutes here and there (and you don't have to sit around waiting while others take their turns). The map only allows for 4 players.

Second, our credit card info got swiped somehow. I looked at our account info yesterday and saw a $200 charge for "XBOX Live." I called Discover, and apparently some other unauthorized charges had been made at the same time (one $1 charge for Yahoo and one larger charge to Blizzard for World of Warcraft). These additional charges didn't show up on the online account--apparently Discover was double-checking to make sure they were valid charges. Of course, once their suspicions were confirmed, they canceled the account. The question remains--if Discover had suspicions, why didn't they contact me?

I'm not sure how our credit card information got stolen--I suspect a nearby gas station got hit by a "Skimmer" which transmits credit card information to thieves, but I really don't know. Hopefully everything will resolve and they'll catch the bad guy--and hopefully I won't end up paying $200 for the thief's use of XBox Live.