Vort

I do not trust Rolling Stone. They are liars. Anything they write is tainted by association with them. That said, if there is truth to these allegations, this looks like evil personified. (Which is pretty much what I think of Rolling Stone, too.)

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Everything God does, he does with this reason in mind. That includes instructing us to worship him and put him above all. It's only our own foolish, mortal vantage point that leads us to think it's an ego thing. It is not an ego thing.

Hmmm? What about Andrew Tate?

Two viewpoints to consider: Doctrinal and textual. Doctrinally, I agree. There is no reason to choose "either A or B". In computer science terms, it's not an XOR. Textually, it seems clear to me that Christ brought a child among his disciples to act as an example and a model. In context, he is clearly not talking about child molestation or child slavery or child beating or anything else of the sort. He is talking about those who follow him becoming as a little child; meek, humble, submissive to God. In this context, when he speaks of "these little ones", he is obviously talking about his Saints.

The "-ite" demonyms were done away with during the Nephite Zion period (4 Ne 17). When they eventually returned something close to 200 years later (v. 36), all who followed Christ were called Nephites. Obviously, this would include the surviving disciples of Christ. So I think "the three Nephites" is not an incorrect way of referring to them, even if we suppose that some of the disciples were not of the Nephite nation.

In case you're a Yes fan, here's a bit of a mindblower involving the album covers for Tales from Topographic Oceans and Relayer:

Slime mold has long been underrated as a lab partner for shared assignments.

It is not immediately obvious to me why voting, either on initiatives or perhaps even for representative leadership, is a right. I am not arguing that it is not, just that it is not clear to me why it should be so considered. That seems not unlike saying that serving as a judge is a right—which clearly it is not. Perhaps you can enlighten me. I am sure you realize that the "not legally people" argument is leftist nonsense, used to score emotional points by supposing that no one is astute enough to perceive the outrageous lie right before their eyes, or perhaps brave enough to speak aloud the seditious words that the king is well and truly naked. Of course people were legally people. Outside of serfdom and other forms of slavery, where recognition of people as societal members was intentionally withheld (and at times even then), societies throughout human history have recognized people as people: Male people, female people, child people, old people, foreign people—in some cultures even slave people, even in European society. Even in—**gasp**—American society! Through Britain's long, tortuous history of class division, the so-called lower classes were still recognized as people. That the concept of societal place was recognized and enforced by law does not mean people were not recognized as such. Yes, some were valued more than others, as for example we have seen in our society for a generation or three (though that has been legally overturned by the Supreme Court, so maybe things will get better there). But not "legally people"? Nonsense.

I'm not @Traveler, but let me offer some ideas. I would imagine to narrow the time period in which casting a ballot is legal so as to temporally constrict any ballot falsification to a narrower time range. The reason is contained within the name "absentee ballot". In-person voting seems in principle easier to police and verify identity. I don't see how it would increase the voting burden to a significant degree. If anything, it weeds out the casual voter, which is not a bad thing. And while it may not "necessarily" prevent voter fraud, it might indeed prevent it, or at least decrease it. That would be a huge win. Your argument works exactly counter to your claim. If one party is pretty much guaranteed victory, as you say, then what incentive is there to cheat? You're already guaranteed a win. Cheating is far more likely to be important when the position or item is contested. Hmm. Seems to me that when their corruption was finally so over-the-top that they could no longer be hidden or excused, then they were publicly crucified. Why isn't Joe Biden currently being ousted by these same honorable, fair-minded Democrats? It's not like there is any real doubt remaining about his dealings with Hunter's issues, just a lack of willingness to publish that information—a problem that has been ongoing since 2020. So that only those who have skin in the game and who have demonstrated a willingness to make personal sacrifice will be helping determine the country's direction. All such service-for-franchise ideas include a way for those unable to serve in traditional military to offer their sacrifice in some other meaningful way. Skin in the game. I'm not personally a big fan of this one; it reeks of English hierarchical classes. But the reasoning behind it is clear enough. Pretty sure people were people, then as well as now. Not sure what the century argument you're trying to make is. That you disagree with his ideas does not make them arbitrary.

Finding grace. Why, that's just like a tumbleweed.

Thinking is the issue. Think: I think the problem is that folks think that computers can think. Our common language usage encourages and exacerbates this misconception. People don't understand what AI is. You have highly educated fools like the Google employee (I think?), issuing dire warnings that an AI has "achieved consciousness" or some such absurdity. What a situation we'll be in when our elected decision-makers start turning over crucial decisions to AI algorithms. It is probably already happening; the bus snafu described by @Backroads is one such example.

Well, I did say FWIW. I didn't say it was actually worth anything...

I think this fiasco can be laid at the doorstep of the willingness of decision-makers to hit the Easy Button by putting the onus on a magical computer algorithm that they manifestly do not understand. This is Star Trek thinking. "Well, the computer was supposed to blah blah blah! Why didn't it work?!" The threat is not that computers will do our thinking for us. The real threat is that, so often, we WANT the computers to do our thinking for us. The irony about ChatGPT is that it's a computer, yet is really very bad at math. Very bad. Like, couldn't pass a basic math class past, say, arithmetic. (And maybe not that, if you're adding five-digit numbers.) ChatGPT is a language model, and responds to questions by trying to match linguistic patterns. Not really what you want with math or science.

I find the story- and essay-writing features of ChatGPT interesting. Quite formulaic, but within the rather narrow bounds they prescribe, pretty versatile. Not exactly well done, but I'd say better than the average high school junior (not a high bar, I realize).

You disapprove of my usage of the present tense? Reading the NT must be excruciating for you.

A non-definitive list of Matthew's Messianic citations include: Matt. 1:23 (Isaiah 7:14) Matt. 2:6 (Misquote of Micah 5:2) Matt. 2:15 (Hosea 11:1) Matt. 2:18 (Jeremiah 31:15) Matt. 2:23 (No known source; lost scripture?) Matt. 3:3 (Isaiah 40:3) Matt. 4:15-16 (Isaiah 9:1-2) Matt. 8:17 (Appears to refer to Isaiah 53:4) Matt. 12:18-21 (Isaiah 42:1-3) Matt. 13:35 (Psalm 78:2, maybe?) Matt. 21:5 (Zechariah 9:9; maybe Isaiah 62:11?) Matt. 26:31 (Zechariah 13:7; this is presented as Jesus' words in the KJV and other translations, but I wonder if it isn't actually a parenthetical interjection where Matthew tries to cite another fulfillment of prophecy) Matt. 26:54, 56 (No idea what scriptures these might refer to; more lost scripture, perhaps?) Matt. 27:9 (No idea what verse in Jeremiah he might be talking about, but Zechariah 11:13 seems to fit) Matt. 27:35 (Psalm 22:18) Interesting. I haven't read Matthew closely and looked for this particular phenomenon in some years. On review, it doesn't look like Matthew actually messes up as many times as I remembered him doing. He has a couple of misattributions or strange interpretations, but I remembered much worse. I wonder if it was more than just the prophecies he cited. Not sure. His genealogy is obviously suspect, not agreeing with the genealogies in the books of Chronicles, and he seemed to have tailored it to try to get a nice 14-14-14 split. Maybe some Biblical scholar knows what's going on there; I surely do not.

Or else that everyone else is stupid.

My assumption as a non-sailor non-military non-nuclear-plant-operator non-physicist is that you get far better efficiency using the steam from the reactor to drive propellor turbines directly than to drive generators to create electricity which you then use to drive electric motors to turn the props. There are batteries and generators on board, of course, and I would guess that things are set up to allow much more quiet running with electric motors. But again, non-etc.

Wikipedia, FWIW: Salt Lake City metropolitan area Coordinates: 40.7608°N 111.8910°W From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Location of the Salt Lake City–Provo–Ogden CSA and its components: Salt Lake City, UT MSA Ogden–Clearfield, UT MSA Provo–Orem, UT MSA Heber, UT MSA The Salt Lake City metropolitan area is the metropolitan area centered on the city of Salt Lake City, Utah. The Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau currently define the Salt Lake City, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area as comprising two counties: Salt Lake and Tooele.[1] As of the 2020 census, the MSA had a population of 1,257,936. The Salt Lake City Metropolitan Area and the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Area were a single metropolitan area known as the Salt Lake City-Ogden Metropolitan Area until being separated in 2005.[2] The metropolitan area is part of the Salt Lake City–Provo–Ogden, UT Combined Statistical Area, which also includes the Ogden–Clearfield metropolitan area, the Provo–Orem metropolitan area, and the Heber City, Utah micropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, this CSA had a population of 2,701,129, comprising 82.6 percent of Utah's then 3,271,616 residents. Counties[edit] Salt Lake Tooele Communities[edit] Incorporated places[edit] Alta Bluffdale (partial) Cottonwood Heights Draper (partial) Grantsville Herriman Holladay Midvale Millcreek Murray Ophir Riverton Rush Valley Salt Lake City Sandy South Jordan South Salt Lake Stockton Taylorsville Tooele Vernon Wendover West Jordan West Valley City Unincorporated places[edit] Copperton (township) Dugway (census-designated place) Emigration Canyon (township) Erda (census-designated place) Granite (census-designated place) Kearns (township) Magna (township) Pine Canyon Snowbird Stansbury Park (census-designated place) White City (census-designated place) Demographics[edit] Historical population Census Pop. Note %± 1900 77,725 — 1910 131,426 69.1% 1920 159,282 21.2% 1930 194,102 21.9% 1940 211,625 9.0% 1950 274,895 29.9% 1960 406,576 47.9% 1970 486,031 19.5% 1980 655,297 34.8% 1990 768,075 17.2% 2000 968,858 26.1% 2010 1,124,197 16.0% 2020 1,257,936 11.9% U.S. Decennial Census[3]

I seem to remember something about sandworms not being native to Arrakis and maybe not native to this galaxy. I'm sure I didn't read that in any of the books, so I assume I read it from some other source along the way. EDIT: To be clear, I did not read all of the Dune books. Not even close.

The state can't force random citizens to take that kind of training. They can force state employees, though.

I really enjoyed your video. Nice sermon. You're right, that would not have been out of place, at least on a principles level, in an LDS service.

I would take that deal in a minute. The problem is, if you get past Trump, you have some Republicans that might actually do pretty well in office. (And to be fair, Trump did a spectacular job on Supreme Court nominees and a very passable job on the economy, though he refused to do anything about stanching the debt hemorrhage.) If you get past Biden, I cannot think of a single high-standing Democrat who would do any better than Joe. Some would actually (probably) do worse.

I've always considered everything from the oil refinery to Point of the Mountain to be "greater Salt Lake City".