Back to the USSR!

Show me round your snow peaked
mountains way down south
Take me to your daddy's farm
Let me hear your balalaika's ringing out
Come and keep your comrade warm.
I'm back in the U.S.S.R. U.S.S.A. boy
You don't know how lucky you are boys

Welcome to the United Socialist States of America, Comrades!

Where's my tinfoil hat?

Well, the spending bill passed the Senate. Now the House and Senate have to compromise our future our Constitution our country on a bill to present to the President.

I wonder how much more that will cost us? And what will it cost our children?

One of my colleagues e-mailed me and opined: "The Democrats are going to be in a world of hurt in two years."

My response: "Are they? Are there enough people that care about this to make a difference in two years? And what will the country even look like in two years? Will we even have free elections any longer?"

Yes, probably hyperbole. But is it really? What will history really say about this period of time? Or will it say anything at all, because the "victors" will not want the rabble to know the truth, that -- once -- we were free? How many of our freedoms and our liberties will we still have?

And tell me this: How can so many stupid people be leading our government?

Or an even better question: How can we keep electing these same stupid people to positions of leadership in our government?

And because we do, do we deserve what we get?

That's a scary thought. Think about all of the stories in the Scriptures, where a people "get what they deserve." It usually does not end well, does it? Especially in the Book of Mormon, everyt time the people are as prideful and stiffnecked as we Americans seem to have become. Do we really need to be humbled this way? Honestly?

Are we intelligent adults, we voters? Or are we sheep?

Actually . . . maybe you should not answer that. I am scared to know the answer. The Gadiantons are no longer at the door. They're already inside and sitting at the dinner table, folks.

Because I do not know how to say "Baaaaaa" in Russian, I'll simply say, "до свидания."

Call to Arms

I know there are a lot of people out there that may not like Glenn Beck's style. As you probably know, I am not one of those type.

And before some of you pull out the "ignorant hating racist" card, just stop it.

Regardless of what you think of him, the numbers and facts just don't lie. Take a look at this video and consider what the heck we are doing to this country, and to the world as a whole. (Hint: National bankruptcy may be coming, and it ain't the kind that's going to make my career any better.)

Take a look with an open mind. O-PEN.

These charts are much simpler / less-complex than Al Gore's hocus-pocus. And this is a crisis much more real, much more imminent, and much more critical than the potential hoax of "climate change."

Watch this and then tell me it ain't a conspiracy, somewhere, somehow. I do not know who or how, but I can tell you why: Power. Plain and simple.

Watch and weep. Better yet: watch, wake up, and call a friend or two. Or even your Senator. Wake them up, too.

18 And these Gadianton robbers, who were among the Lamanites, did infest the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof began to hide up their treasures in the earth; and they became slippery, because the Lord had cursed the land, that they could not hold them, nor retain them again.
19 And it came to pass that there were sorceries, and witchcrafts, and magics; and the power of the evil one was wrought upon all the face of the land.
~Mormon 1:18-19

Global What?!?

Walking from the bus stop to the office today I had the thought: "Boy, I would take some of that California weather right now." Then I hear from a co-worker that her family in Los Angeles is walking around in parkas. I guess that 40 degrees, to them, is cold right now.

I cannot even wish for Las Vegas weather.

My friends in Salt Lake City are reporting lows in the low teens and single digits. Blowing drifts, high winds.

We are experiencing much the same around here, including record lows for December.

All that leads me to ask . . . Where the heck is this Global Warming thing?

Sorry, should I have said "conspiracy" rather than "thing"? Or is that too politically incorrect?

Do not get me wrong, I can and will accept that climate change happens.

But I cannot and will not accept that climate change happens primarily because of mankind.

You see, there's this big nuclear reactor up in the sky that has just a little bit to do with temperature, weather patterns, etc.

Compared to that, we humans are akin to parasites living off the flaky skin and dandruff of our host creature.

Case in point: When was the last time that any three so-called meteorologists actually managed to call a seven- or ten-day forecast accurately? Honestly? And then you expect me to believe that they can predict weather patterns and climate change out for one hundred years?

Really? Do you think I am that stupid and/or gullible?

I ain't buyin' your bridge in New York, or the big green lady in the harbor.

Are we really such a self-important bunch of creatures to believe that we can really have such a massive effect on a living entity so much larger than us? This is not to say we do not have an effect, but come on, really? We are going to destroy the world? We are really that self-centered, that egotistical?

Oh wait, we have to consider Al Gore. Maybe he is.

I know I am not. I am still humbled when I look up at the multitude of stars at night. I am still humbled standing at the edge of a canyon, looking down at the majesty of God's Creation. I am still humbled when I look at my hands and consider just how complex a mechanism the hand truly is. I am still humbled when I watch a storm's fury: waves tearing homes from the earth, winds destroying anything a human can erect, snow and fire snuffing out life easier than a birthday candle.

Stand against that power, O Man!, and weep. Stand against that power, and die. The chaotic life cycle and natural rhythms of the Earth are much more than we little men could ever hope to create, not to mention the effects of the Sun.

I may not be as humble as I should be, but I am still humble enough to recognize the power of God's Hand, and the ineffectiveness of Man's will against that power. I do not choose to offend God by attributing to mankind a power that we do not have. I do not choose to worship at the Gore's altar or bow to the preachings of the Warming Religion.

I choose to worship a true God and a religion of real hope, love, and truth.

Do not tell me we are rapidly destroying the Earth. Do not tell me we're all going to roast to death in a oven of our own creation.

My toes are still frozen from my commute.

Now where's my hot chocolate?

UPDATE:
Apparently I am not alone. Just saw this little piece--

CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers had never bought into the notion that man can alter the climate.... Myers, an American Meteorological Society certified meteorologist, explained on CNN’s Dec. 18 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that the whole idea is arrogant and mankind was in danger of dying from other natural events more so than global warming.

“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”

Wow. I feel validated. And he is not alone either; the article says that a second CNN meteorologist has taken issue with the whole global warming conspiracy religion theory.

And I am still waiting for my hot chocolate.

Baaaaaa-aaaaaa

Well.

They've spoken.

They listened to what the rest of the world wanted, instead of what we needed. And they've spoken.


God bless America God save America.

We're gonna need it.

Constructive Thoughts: National Humility, Pt. 2

Ever since Junior High, I have been fascinated by the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. I cannot explain what my fascination is, and I am certainly no mathematician, so I cannot pretend to fully understand it. For those of you who may not know, the Fibonacci sequence is a sequence in which each number after the first two numbers is the sum of the previous two numbers. In other words: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, etc.

The sequence is predictable. There is a pattern or sequence in life that is nearly as predictable as the Fibonacci sequence. That is the so-called Pride Cycle.

What is the Pride Cycle you ask?

The Pride Cycle is a pattern in which a civilization rises and falls, based on their adherence to the Lord's words and the level of their pride. It is a sequence that is repeated over and over in the scriptures, as the Lord's way of teaching us about the pitfalls of pride. We are constantly hit over the head with stories representative of the Pride Cycle, I believe, so that we can learn to recognize it in our own lives and in the world around us, so that we can avoid the serious consequences of pride. The steps in the sequence could be stated as follows: (a) Righteousness and prosperity; (b) Pride and wickedness; (c) Destruction and suffering; and (d) Humility and repentance, which then leads back to (a).

In the Book of Mormon, especially, we see this cycle repeated time after time. In almost every instance where the Lord blesses his people with abundance, prosperity, and material wealth, it is not long before they turn away from Him, forgetting Him, until they are brought to a remembrance of God--through destruction or suffering--at which time they are humbled and repent. Pride always leads to destruction, and usually sooner rather than later.

This scares me.

Why? As President Ezra Taft Benson taught, "Pride is the universal sin, the great vice.... Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion." {Ezra Taft Benson, "Beware of Pride," Ensign, May 1989 at 4.} (Aside: This sermon by President Benson is one of the great discourses on pride; although I am going to cite heavily from it, I would strongly recommend reading it for yourselves in its entirety, if you have not done so lately. My latest reading of it brought all of this to mind.)

What else scares me about it? We all know the words of Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Look around you; do you see any evidence that the Pride Cycle is going strong?

First, a definition or two. For the sake of this argument, I am going to focus strictly upon current events in the United States of America. This is by no means meant to insult or leave out my non-American readers. It is simply easier for me at this point to make American-oriented references. For that similar purpose, I am going to use the American people as God's people; again, not because they are any better then people elsewhere, it simply helps in the analysis. In addition--as I have written before--this land is a chosen land. {See this post.)

Step one: Righteousness and prosperity.
Four months ago, I urged a "national pride check" because of how prosperous the country had become. And we, as a people, have been very prosperous. "One of the inevitable side effects that occurs as people apply gospel principles in their lives is that their material circumstances also improve.” {Dean L. Larsen, "Beware Lest Thou Forget the Lord," Ensign, May 1991 at 40.}

While we should not expect that we have a right to material wealth if we follow the commandments, "the lord has made it clear...that when his people are obedient, he desires to bless them with the necessities and the comforts of life so that none should live in want.” Id. Material, worldly wealth, however, can carry with it risks of complacency and may distract us from what is eternally important. It can become so important, sometimes, that our possessions seem to possess us. This concern over material wealth is a matter about which prophets have been concerned throughout history.

Moses, for example, warned the Israelites:

7 For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;
8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;
9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.
10 When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
11 Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:
12 Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;
13 And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;
14 Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; {Deuteronomy 8:7-14}

Brigham Young also taught: "The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear...is that they cannot stand wealth.” {Larsen, supra (citation omitted).} The central danger with material wealth, you see, “lay in its obscuring the need for acknowledging the Lord’s hand in these blessings, and in failing to use the abundance to bless others and to accomplish the Lord’s purposes.” {Id.}

Step two: Pride and wickedness. Surely we do not have a problem here, right?

Wrong.

Some of the earmarks of pride, as President Benson set them forth:

• Enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen (called the central feature of pride)
• Essentially competitive: our will against God's
• Desires, appetites, passions go unbridled
• Inability to accept the authority of God; Human perceptions against God's great knowledge; Inability to change one's opinions to agree with God's
• Fear of men's judgments rather than of God's judgments
• Faultfinding
• Gossiping
• Backbiting
• Murmuring
• Living beyond our means
• Envying
• Coveting
• Withholding gratitude and praise
• Unforgiving
• Jealous
• Disobedience
• Selfishness
• Contention
• Easily offended
• Grudge-holding
• Not easily corrected

Whew. I will leave it to you as to where we stand as far as these things are concerned.

Step three: Destruction and suffering. Here's where I really began to get scared when I started looking at this topic. President Benson said, "God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble." {Benson, supra.} I am afraid that we, by and large, are going to be compelled to be humble, rather than choosing humility for ourselves.

Look around.

Where is our perceived power now? Where is our economic power? Are we still prosperous? In the Book of Mormon the Lord used droughts and famines to bring humility to his people. (See, e.g., Helaman 11:3-7; 12:3.) Sound familiar? Droughts, flooding, food shortages, fuel shortages, high prices, low dollar value, etc. Do I really need to go on?

Have we missed the teachings of Moses and forgotten the Lord?

Pride is a stumbling block for Zion, according to a Prophet of the Lord.

Are we stumbling? Or have we already stumbled and are wallowing in the mud?
Step four: Humility and repentance, which lead back to righteousness and prosperity. I do not think it is too late for us to choose to be humble. We may not avoid all of the destruction and suffering that we have sown through our pride, but we may not reap as much as we otherwise might have.

How do we choose humility? How could I put it better than a Prophet? We can choose to humble ourselves by:

• conquering enmity
• receiving counsel and chastisement
• forgiving those who have offended us
• rendering selfless service
• preaching the word that can humble others
• getting to the temple more frequently
• confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God
• loving God, submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives

Four months ago, I said that I thought that we needed a pride check, individually and nationally. I said that our consequences are coming.

I think they are here. Just look at the headlines of the day.

The consequences are here, my friends.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Are we condemned to repeat it? No. There is a way to break the Pride Cycle.

We need to find humility and repent, individually and nationally. Heck, Globally, even. We need to get ourselves back to righteousness and prosperity will follow. Then we need to find a way to cut out the other two steps for good. We need to remain humble, even in our prosperity. We need to continually repent in order to stay righteous. That is how we break the Pride Cycle.

That's where I long to be.

What about you?

Lest thou forget....

[L]est thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons. {Deut.4:9.}

In loving memory of the 3,000+ American lives that were brutally cut short seven years ago today. God bless them and their families, friends, and loved ones. Lest we forget. It's only been seven years and where are we now?
It's next to impossible to find footage of these events that are not wrapped up in "truther" conspiracy theories. Have we already forgotten? Why are we not seeing these videos, these images, on the news all day long?





These are the sights and sounds of our fellow Americans dying.

These are the sights and sounds of what we are fighting against.

Don't bother giving me your Truther spins. Sorry, but that money's no good here. I won't go into my reasons for this position here. Suffice it to say first that there were simply too many variables to keep quiet for this long and second that this Administration is too unpopular for someone truly in the know to have not yet stepped forth and said, "Here's how we did it. Yes, WE did it." There. That is all I will say about the conspiracy theorists. What matters today is that it happened.

I will tell you how it happened: EVIL.

It is not a popular position in our modern world, that Evil exists. Sure, lip service is given, but it is not generally believed, truly believed, that Evil is alive, well, and active in the world.

It is.

See above for an example.

How many lives cut short? How many families broken and destroyed? How many individual faiths and testimonies shattered? How many beliefs in God shredded?

You tell me these acts were not Evil and I will raise an eyebrow.

We must not forget.

We must teach it to our sons and our sons' sons.

Some may say that we must forgive and forget. That it is pointless to dwell on the images and the events of that day.

That's like saying that we should not dwell on the instances and examples of evil pointed out in the Scriptures.

Forgive and forget? Excuse me? Hello? If you weren't aware, there is Evil in the world.

EVIL.

Maybe, maybe you could make a case for forgiving those who actually committed the acts? But only so far as you forgive their individual choice. But to cast a "blanket of forgiveness" over it? We should turn a blind eye to it and forget about it?

No. It is our responsibility to watch for and expose that Evil. It is our duty to make sure that our friends, families, and children understand this Evil and can recognize it for themselves.

Recognition is key to stopping Evil, crushing Evil, and digging out its roots. We are at war with Evil; the ancient War in Heaven continues today. {Aside: Please do not misquote me and tell me I am equating any specific religion or people with Evil. I am talking about a much larger scale, a larger philosophy than this narrow view.} I will say it again: We are at war against Evil. This is not just Iggy talking; this was expressed by a Prophet of the Lord. {See Gordon B. Hinckley, "The Times in Which We Live," Ensign, Nov. 2001.)

Granted, the people of this country have done some really, really stupid things in the guise of stopping Evil. And yes, I am talking stupidity on both sides of the political aisle. We, as a country, have made some mistakes.

But the acts that happened seven years ago? These were works of Evil, not mistakes. As President Hinckley said, "Out of that vicious and ugly attack we are plunged into a state of war.... But this was not an attack on the United States alone. It was an attack on men and nations of goodwill everywhere.... It was cruel and cunning, an act of consummate evil." {Id.}

An act of consumate evil. Recognition of this fact is key, lest we forget.

On this day, and every day, God Bless America.

We really need it.

Constructive Thoughts: Hurricane Gustav

The news is reporting that Gustav has passed New Orleans and is losing steam as it heads inland.

Thank heavens.

My heart goes out to those who perished in the storm, and to their loved ones. At the same time, I am so glad it was not any worse.

Thanks to the guys over at Spirit of the Law for their wake-up call.

"These are good people," the Spiriters say.

I concur, and will certainly will keep the people in my thoughts and prayers.

And I think it is important that we receive this fine reminder: there are good souls in Louisiana, just as there are elsewhere. I have a self-proclaimed "Christian" co-worker who believes (and will be quick to tell you) that Katrina was sent as a message to New Orleans and was a "cleansing" of the land, because of course, "everyone" in New Orleans is part of "a decadent lifestyle" and deserves what they get.

Yeah. No joke.

Soon after my mission began, I was in an area where a few un-thinking 19-year-olds thought it was funny to broadcast the comment that we just needed one good typhoon to serve as a mass baptism and let God sort them out. Those broadcast obscenities soon reached the Mission President's ears. I still remember the scathing talk all of the missionaries in my area received at the next Zone Conference.

"Ouch," doesn't begin to describe the feeling. A band-aid wouldn't cover the resulting wound--it was stiches- and staple-worthy.

I am sure that there will be those who say the same things about the victims of Gustav.

Let us remember, as we open our collective mouths to do so, that there are good, fine souls down there, be they members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Evangelicals, Baptists, or any other denomination or belief. Just because there is prevalent decadence does not mean that everyone is tainted. I say "we" need to remember: I am speaking to myself as well. I confess that I must work on this as well at times.

Remember: We are all Children of God.

There are very few, if any, persons that I can think of on this earth that truly "deserve" to die.

Please: remember the humanity behind the news reports.

And as you open your mouth to decry the people and their debauchery, see if you can remember at least one of the following two passages:

• JUDGE not, that ye be not judged. {Matt. 7:1}



• And the second [commandment] is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. {Mark 12:31}

Choose one--choose both, if you are willing--and liken the scripture unto you, unto us.

Let the spirit of the scriptures--let the Spirit of Christ--engender a bit of compassion in our hearts.

And may God Bless those upon whom Gustav has had an effect.