The first time I thought about this question was on my flight from the MTC to the mission home in Florida. My older brother had just asked me something about this in a letter and as I sat pondering the question I was reminded once again that I had nothing insightful to say due to my total lack of life experience. Since then I have had a few occassions to bless babies yet I still wonder about this. What is a baby blessing for? In preparing for a baby blessing should I approach it like I do a healing blessing or is it different? (more…)

As far as I can tell our scriptures don’t say anything specifically relating to world population. But don’t worry because wikipedia does. Here are a couple of interesting graphs from the world population wiki:

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The title of this post is a direct quote from a recent visitor here at the Thang. The observation came in response to a chilly reply I gave to one of her* comments. Of course “Jenny” was right. I often do come across as kind of mean to strangers on the web these days. I don’t know if running a blog for more than five years makes everyone jaded and suspicious about newcomers but it seems to have had that effect on me. I admittedly find myself warily sizing up newcomers and barely being able to hide my sneaking suspicion that this anonymous new visitor is A) an internet troll in disguise, B) a moron, or C) both.

The sad reality for anyone that runs a Mormon blog is that option C) proves to be the case too often. So I find myself a little jaded. How about you? Has blogging made you “kind of mean” and jaded, especially with strangers on the web… yet?

* Her handle was a female name but of course on the internet no one knows…
(See what I mean about being jaded?)

Continued from here.

For those who are new, click here for all parts.

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet.
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Continued from here.

Well, we’ve talked about engagement before, so I don’t want to spend too much time on it, especially as there have not been that many dramatic changes in the results, even though the questions I used this time are a little different.
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Continued from here
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As a way of introducing the data set and setting out from the onset the natural imperfections inherent in doing data analysis via a web based tool, I thought I would begin with a brief explanation of the intent of the survey and some preliminary charts showing the demographics provided for those who took the survey.
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There was an interesting segment on 60 Minutes last week titled “Jihadists And ‘The Narrative'”. You can watch it here:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

“The Narrative” is the all too pervasive worldview among radical Muslims that says the United States is secretly bent on destroying Islam. Near the end of the segment it became clear that The Narrative relies heavily on conspiracy theories for its support. In this case the radical Muslims are convinced that the CIA was the driving factor behind the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States. The logic is that the CIA put Al Qaeda up to the attacks so America would have an excuse to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and to proceed with its secret agenda to destroy Islam. (more…)