You're getting old when...

I just heard a funny story on my way into the lab this morning. A woman on the elevator was holding a typewriter and I jokingly commented that I couldn't believe people still used those things. One of the professors down the hall, who was also on the elevator, then told us that his son recently came upon their old typewriter. After playing with it for a bit, he turned to his dad and said, "This computer is really cool. When you type on the keyboard it prints out immediately."

Just finished Newt Gingrich's new book "Rediscovering God in America." Nice little tour of the Washington D.C. and the influence that religion has had on the establishment and growth of our nation. I'll try to get back to make more comments later.

Dennis Prager recently had an online debate about the existence of God with a prominent atheist named Sam Harris. Although not likely to change many minds either way, the debate is interesting. What annoyed me was the way that Mr. Harris made a particular point of demeaning the faith of member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, or at least he denigrated an uniformed and warped view of what Latter-day Saints believe. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive to this, but it seems like Latter-day Saints have recently been at the receiving end of an increasing amount of undeserved criticism lately. Christopher Hitchens made some really rude and uncalled for comments about Latter-day Saints on the Hugh Hewitt show. When pressed by Hugh, Mr. Hitchens made a lame attempt to paint all Christians with the same brush, but it was clear that he has a particular beef with Latter-day Saints. Also, Article6blog has recently been covering Andrew Sullivan's mockery of Latter-day Saint beliefs and practices. It is possible that these attacks are all prelude to Mitt Romney's potential run for President on 2008. Hopefully people will think about the Latter-day Saints that they know and recognize this trash-talk for what it is.

Americans got a letter from President Ahmadinejad yesterday.
What has this guy been smoking?
I'm sure the people of Iran would appreciate it if he took his own advice in how to govern:
"It is possible to govern based on an approach that is distinctly different from one of coercion, force and injustice.
It is possible to sincerely serve and promote common human values, and honesty and compassion.
It is possible to provide welfare and prosperity without tension, threats, imposition or war."
Maybe the Iranian religion police could be retrained to act as a "pleasant surprise patrol".
They could use their information gathering skills to discover people who are genuinely kind and charitable and reward them with flowers or a chocolate milkshake or something like that.

First post in a long time (years)!

I'm back, or at least I will be when I have something to say. Cool. Blogger now lets me put pictures in my blog. Here are the resident critters with their Halloween pumpkins.