While not 100% confirmable simply because the LDS church does not reveal its finances except in countries where it is required by law (e.g. UK, Canada), the following article provides enough insight and extrapolation to give pause for thought:

How Much Does a Mormon Apostle Make?

The interesting part for me is where the church advises mission presidents not to discuss nor claim their funds receipt from the church as “income”.

Once more example of institutionalized “lying for the Lord”.

In Utah, it is currently legal–

• To evict a tenant for being gay
• To fire an employee for being gay

The Salt Lake Tribune reports this morning that a gay anti-bias bill that would prohibit this type of discrimination will be attempted in this session of the Utah State legislature — even though the LDS church has reportedly chosen to not get behind it, as had seemed to be the case earlier this year.

This apparent refusal to provide its blessing (something that is literally required for most LDS legislators to get on board) may be tied to attempts to remove the clause allowing exemptions for people with “sincere religious beliefs against homosexuality”.

Maybe it’s me, but isn’t this exactly the group this bill is targeting? Keeping this clause in makes it essentially non-enforceable and non-effective.

ADDENDUM: It didn’t pass. Another year in Utah with no legal protections. I also read that the church fears this because they would not be able to fire church employees who are in a gay relationship as they currently do with impunity. Nice.

Roger Ebert has written in his Chicago Sun-Times blog a strong indictment against the purveyors of subtle (and not so subtle) lies in today’s political process.

This is the best line: “Our political immune system has only one antibody, and that is the truth.”

Put up or shut up

This many Americans did not arrive at such conclusions on their own. They were persuaded by a relentless process of insinuation, strategic silence and cynical misinformation. Most of the leaders in this process have been cautious to avoid actually saying Obama is a Muslim. They speak in coded words and allow the implications to sink in. I recently watched Glenn Beck speaking at great length about Obama’s Muslim father, but you would not have learned from Beck that the father, who Obama met only once, was not a practicing Muslim in any sense.

Rush Limbaugh has told his listeners he can find “no evidence” that Obama is a Christian. In Paul Krugman’s op-ed column in the New York Times on 8/29, Limbaugh is quoted: “Imam Hussein Obama, is probably the best anti-American president we’ve ever had.” Limbaugh obviously doesn’t believe Obama is an imam. How many of his listeners realize that? Is he concerned that his words will be taken seriously?
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Last week, Utah’s Provo Daily Herald editorialized away a proposed increase in school spending thusly:

The reason that Utah spends less per pupil is mainly because there are more pupils per household. Once the equation is corrected to account for that — in other words, assume that Utah had family sizes in line with the national average — the amount of money spent per pupil would rise, and Utah would land in the middle of the pack of states.

Perhaps this same editorial board should go back to school themselves – for remedial mathematics and common sense.

I’ve been saying for weeks that the LDS church has to be hurting financially on several levels: tithing receipts impacted by laid-off workers, more welfare expenditures and now today, this article from the SL Tribune, detailing the “restructuring” of the Deseret Management Corp.

John Stewart, of course.

Got 7 minutes? Watch this video. A quick introduction and overview of how we got where we are and why it’s not going to end overnight.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized – Part 1

We e-filed our taxes last Thursday evening and were anticipating a refund sometime in early February. I was very pleasantly surprised to see the separate direct deposits in our joint checking account already yesterday.

Rather than stimulate the economy single-handedly, I decided to move the cash into savings for now. No plans for it except as a buffer/cushion.

Before anyone gets too defensive about the previous article discussing a former Soviet KGB analyst’s prediction that the United States will disintegrate by next year, let me throw in my own two cents’ worth:

My cousin pointed out one glaringly obvious thought: Utah certainly would not “throw in” with California.
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Igor Panarin, a former Russian KGB analyst, began predicting almost 10 years ago that the United States would disintegrate by 2010.

The Wall Street Journal published a nice synopsis:

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls “The Californian Republic,” and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of “The Texas Republic,” a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an “Atlantic America” that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls “The Central North American Republic.” Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

“It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time.” A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. “It’s not there for no reason,” he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia’s biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt “a pyramid scheme,” and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington’s role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama “can work miracles,” he wrote. “But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

HERE is the full article. Pay special attention to the map at the end of the article.