I was baptized into Christ when I was 3 weeks old. Lutherans emphasize baptism as the means by which we are brought into the faith, and we remember it daily and Luther wrote that we make the sign of the cross to remember this.

In fact, we tend to distrust emotional feelings of being saved as  opposed to objective things we can point to (e.g., I was baptized on this date and the Bible says baptism saves me, etc.).

I do remember dating a Mormon and him telling me to do that thing where I pray for God to show me that Mormonism was true. It didn't work. I remember wondering if that worked for a lot of people.

Also, it made me see some of the similarities between LDS approaches and others that arose from the burntover movements.

Now having said all that, I have had moments of religious ecstasy as well as inexplicable comfort. I've also had an experience of otherworldly evil ...

Which made it surprisingly hard for a logical fanatic such as myself to get fully into unbelief!

It's such a laughable idea that people would create more work for themselves because they were overworked. Laughable. But it gave the New York Times enough of an excuse to drop journalistic curiosity, so maybe I'm the foolish one ...

I'm surprised by how openly my scientist friends acknowledge that they research climate mostly because that's where the money is. One told me he had to figure out a tie between what he really wanted to study and climate and that if he didn't, he would never be able to study it.

Stem cell research is another obvious one. It turns out that embryonic-destroying stem cell research has been something of a bust while regular stem cell research that doesn't destroy other human beings holds great promise. But remember how California, flush with so much cash, decided to fund an ESCR to the tune of millions of dollars?

The other obvious area is anything dealing with sexuality. You'll notice that studies about, say, health effects of homosexuality disappear about 20 years ago. If they crop up again, they say things radically different. If your studies show anything negative about homosexuality that can't be spun as a result of homophobia, good luck keeping your job, much less getting funding! It won't happen. Only an idiot would actually try to research that issue independently and without a pre-determined agenda.

That's exactly right. I save some of what i want to say for engaging readers in the comments.

And there's nothing wrong with writing a post designed to generate comments. I mean, that's what we are -- a conversation site. We want the conversation and that's what makes us successful.

I like it in part because it's such a different style of writing than what I typically get to do as a journalist -- which usually means I just lay something out as dryly and fairly as possible under deadline pressure and word count limits.

TL;DR.

Just kidding.

As counterintuitive as it seems, and there are definitely exceptions to this rule, we've found that the shorter the original post, the lengthier the conversation.

It's kind of humiliating, actually, to spend all this time on a brilliant essay and get 0-5 responses. Then you post a silly picture or YouTube video or write a 1-sentence post and you're wrangling a 300+comment thread.

But them's the shakes.

The more I think about this, the worse it seems. Really inappropriate behavior from a federal official.

Not entirely surprising, given my own familiarity with Western living, but he has to be in his early 80s, looks like he's a good 20 years younger, and is a heck of a public speaker.

Yes! It still bothers me, too! And it bothered me even before I realized it was all based on falsehoods.

Time travel, obviously. Or glitches in the software?

This is brilliant and I'm stealing it.

How much do I love you for remembering my rant(s) against Toobin!

Fwiw, my husband had these thoughts on Toobin's latest here.

I know! It would be so awesome. I hope he really does. Like, if this is him holding back ...

I see that the Congressman has since clarified his remarks. I was right about what he meant to say (as opposed to what he did say!).

That's another thing. Nobody had their phone tapped (that we know of) -- their phone records were taken.

I read this differently. I think he was just pointing out that the press gallery is right near the cloak room.

I'm so excited to see this on here!

Michael is a cousin of mine! (And he is one crazy-talented designer.)

To learn more about the dress, I found this video somewhat helpful: