NeuroTypical

I’m interested, do you think Bernie Sanders should have had his way back in 2008 when he was against all of this getting set up in the first place?

Heh. Yeah. "Institute of Peace". This is news story #2 about it. News story #1 was pretty wild too:

I'm the last person on earth to give a crap about what famous people wear to important events, but for whatever reason, I was struck by Melania's choice. - Mob boss wife - Starting mourning her husband early - "You [beep]s tried to kill my husband" The outfit made an impact on me. And I've never had an impact made on me by anyone's outfit before in my entire life (with the obvious exception of my wife on our sealing day).

Yeah, I'm thinking you're on to something. I've had a vague wondering about how he was impacted by getting shot in the ear. Surviving a fatal encounter by a few millimeters and luck, is enough to traumatize people or change their worldview, even their personality. It's like the air seems different, reality looks different after such an event to someone who has survived it. I saw the inauguration party with Melania's "you [beeps] tried to kill my husband" vibe. It makes me wonder how the two of them talk about it in bed at night.

Yep. I grew up in the '70's listening to my union Democrat father and neighbors zealously supporting tariffs. Japanese cars were better and cheaper, and they were so mad about it you could literally see the veins popping out of their heads as they swore about it, demanding the govt protect US made stuff. Cars and clothes seemed to be their biggest pet peeves. In the '80's as I turned conservative, Friedman's notions seemed to have won the day. Global competition was best. Into the '90's factories moved overseas and Detroit decayed into the lawless pit it is today. Union protectionism could only do so much. My dad saw Japanese writing on some of the cables under the hood of his Chevy, and he swore and kept swearing into the next decade, literally dying mad about it. In the 2000's I remember getting a job, one of the rare hires as a company was downsizing. They had just had a meeting with assigned seating where they told half the room "you're staying" and the other half "you're going because your job is moving overseas". Bush took flak from the dems and libs for his globalism - they were so ticked at his "New World Order" talk. From the 2010's until the week before Trump got elected, everyone stopped talking about it, and it just seemed to be the conventional wisdom. We had been told the US was a service industry powerhouse, and it was best for us to have the cheap labor make the stuff, while we had high paying white collar jobs doing all the thinking and banking and software and whatnot. Here comes Trump throwing the whole thing on its ear, telling us we're going broke because of the trade imbalance. His claim is we need to go back to the 1800's when tariffs were so successful we had a hard time spending all the money. I mean, if Friedman's principles remain accurate (which I assume they do), surely Trump still has a point about the whole going broke thing? I mean, ok, if tariffs aren't the answer, what is? If the US continues to send upwards of ~1 trillion dollars a year out of itself and into the world isn't a problem, when does it start to be?

Here's page one of what got revealed yesterday. Blanket 10% tariffs for everyone, plus higher ones for certain nations Trump is mad at for various reasons. There were several screens like this. Notably missing was Canada and Mexico, and Russia. The Twitter community notes say: Here's a pretty informative article that helps explain things to folks like me trying to wrap their heads around things. This link should get y'all past the paywall: https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/what-to-know-about-the-u-s-trade-imbalance-in-charts-79b25c0b?st=Rfzsky&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink What do y'all think? I'm struggling to get informed enough to have a relevant opinion.

There would have to be significant delegating of the planning/groundbreaking/negotiating/dedicating required by building a temple. Maybe another quorum of seventy peopled by folks with the single duty of handling temple building? I mean, logarithmic growth is a wonderful thing: But at some point that exponential growth has to level off. If it didn't we would eventually have a fully staffed and funded operating temple for every single human on earth.

I get the sense that everyone on earth with a finger in the war technology pie, is using Ukraine/Russia as a proving ground for their cool modern advancements like drones and electronics and whatnot. So if you consider that sort of thing to be corrupt, I would say that there are no noncorrupt players on the field, and all of the umpires and coaches, and most of the fans are corrupt too.

My old stompin' grounds from 30 years ago. Feels odd to think about it. Dunno. One of the things I do is look up the GDP of each country that gets a temple. It's so humbling to see how many resources the church pours into destitute poverty stricken nations who wouldn't hope to afford the millions necessary to build and operate a temple. I also get energized thinking about how since October '21, every time we get new temples announced, there are more announced outside the US than inside. I note that out of our 367 temples announced/being built/operating, less than half of them are in the US. An awful lot of Saints have come before us to predict/prophecy about such things. How many of these people are still alive?

Excellent poem. I remember trying to impart its wisdom to my 18 month old who was throwing a traumatized fit at having to put on her socks, but she wasn't having it. It took years, but I think she's finally coming around.

Probably the worst natural disaster this year. Wiki is reporting ~3000 dead. People are posting videos they took from inside buildings on social media - terrifying stuff. I know very little about Myanmar, just that it had a military coup a few years back that was captured on some TikTok lady's morning yoga routine.

LDSBOT.com says: I found a General Conference talk by Jeffrey R. Holland titled "Broken Things to Mend" from April 2006, where he touches on themes that sound similar to what you're describing. While it doesn't have the exact wording you mentioned, it discusses how to "come unto Christ" and how important it is to align our lives with His teachings for healing and salvation. If you want to check it out for yourself, here is the link to the talk: Broken Things to Mend. 😊

I don't recognize it, and I rarely paid attention to Salon, so don't know. Semafor's leadership team has some decent credentials I guess. I also see my old friends at Worldview.stratfor.com are still up and going. I found them 15 years ago and appreciated their approach to news. Not sure what they do now, but back then they advised businesses on global political and economic trends, so they got paid for making accurate predictions. That was a pretty good way of getting rid of spin and bias, IMO. (Or more to the point, a legitimate way of taking 'accuracy and relevance' and making it your spin and bias.)

Last week's Pearl of Wisdom from Social Media told me that you end up being an amalgamation of the 5 most important people in your life. The eternal debate between nature vs. nurture enters the chat. I'm not hopeful the argument will ever be resolved. I personally figure that agency is part of the story, but not the entire story. Meaning, most folks have a certain amount of influence in who they are, their moods, their outlook on life. It's possible, to a certain extent, to chose to be happy or miserable. But that's hardly the full story. Run the book of Job experiment on 1000 different people, and you'll end up with a few like Job, and everyone else who gives up at some point in the story. Biochemical impacts on mental state, significant childhood or adult trauma, an upbringing filled with caring and love and access to things of the spirit - all can have an impact on our ability to chose our mindset. I'm pretty sure there are also folks just born certain ways, who remain that certain way as they grow and mature and get old. And it's impossible to dent the mindset of such folks, no matter how much you want, or they want. It's fun stuff to think about. So for General Conference, I expect to hear talks targeted to the entire human race and everyone in it, trying to reach folks from all the different mindsets.

Mission accomplished.

Over the decades, GC has gone from something I never paid attention to, to something I watched because I was supposed to, to something I enjoyed and was filled by. Last few years, GC has become something I need and yearn for. I expect that general trend to continue for me. I'd love to hear more about our new hymns, and what the folks who picked them are thinking.

Little passing mentions in shows that have nothing to do with us are fun.

6 years? You've earned a victory lap.

Fred Rogers was born this day in 1928. I only allow myself one earthly hero, and he's it. Dude seems to be the real deal. I hold him in a similar regard to President Kimball at his kindest and most loving. https://www.facebook.com/iowapbs/videos/226910288168729

Nice. We did a fish tank once when the kids were younger. You've not done a tank until you've got one of these: If you're like me, you'll have to endure your wife reminiscing about when we were dating.

I learned about AOC and Tom Homan both in the same 2019 video. Everything I have learned about them since has pretty much aligned with their performance on this video.

It's kind and generous of you to help extended family as you're able. Good luck to the lot of you as y'all try to make the right decisions about such things.

I admit that I had to look up interspecies protextation before I caught on.

Am I the only one confused by the last 4 posts in this thread?

Because they believe drumming up fears will win votes for them, and lose votes for the other guy. It's politics 101. I mean, it's possible that discovery of how things work in Medicare might make them look bad, but occam's razor would seem to indicate plain old fear-drumming is the most likely reason. The last time I heard this level of disaster and doom pedaling was during the welfare reform parts of Gingrich's Contract with America. I remember Maxine Waters standing up and screaming, genuinely shrieking, about how the R's welfare reform would result in "bodies stacked like cordwood" as the poor people began dying off as the checks were stopping. In reality, what happened was the FedGov got out of the welfare business and just did block grants to the states so they could handle welfare themselves. It worked so well that within a decade the Dems were claiming the welfare reform was their idea.