Happy New Year, Everyone!

I know there has been some pretty nasty s**t going down for some people who read this blog.

I just hope everyone has a better 2012 than they could have hoped for!

Oh, dear! Some presents did not arrive, thanks to Yodel!

The Yodel delivery company has caused much angst and heartache by managing to not deliver many presents and food orders for Christmas!

This story tells you all about it and what you can do about it if it has impacted upon you:

http://thatschristmas.blogspot.com/2011/12/dont-yell-for-yodel.html

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Notamormon!

Have a fantastic, Mormonism free Christmas, New Year and 2012, in so far as you can!

This will take you to a rather nice online Christmas greeting card

http://thatschristmas.blogspot.com/2011/12/merry-christmas-and-happy-new-year.html

Good bye for 2011. See you in 2012!

Hard to believe, but Christmas is nearly here, again!

Yes, Christmas is nearly here, again!

I have got most of the presents sorted out -need to buy some wrapping paper, however- and we will need some Vodka for our Lithuanian neighbour/friend, plus some cards and one or two other items.

Got to get the turkey and the vegetables, some beer and table wine, some Champagne and that's about it!

We have had a problem with some items being stolen before they could be delivered
http://thats-business.blogspot.com/2011/12/unknown-number-of-christmas-parcels.html

Too late to deal with that now, though.

But all sorts of fun is going on here!
http://thatschristmas.blogspot.com

and here!
http://thatsfoodanddrink.blogspot.com

Hope you all have a great Christmas and a good New Year!

Are Mormons Christians? Is Mormonism Christian?

Are Mormons Christian? The answer to that questions is in most cases, yes, they are.

But is Mormonism Christian? That is an entirely different matter.

When is a secret agent a secret agent?

This might not seem connected, but it is.

Not many years ago a case came to court that seemed like the worst kind of fictional plot for a pot-boiler of a novel.

A man approached a group of college friends and he wheedled his way into their confidences.

Eventually he was able to produce evidence that he was an officer in MI6 and that he was spying on a fellow student who was Irish and, he told them, a member of the Provisional IRA and in charge of a local IRA cell. He pointed out to some perceived inconsistencies in the Irish student's behaviour and he was able to convince them that what he told them was the truth.

The man even became the lover of one of the group and, I seem to recall, fathered a child by her.

He recruited them into MI6 as agents and had them undertake missions.

Eventually he told them that they had somehow had their covers blown and he made them flee for their lives.

They spent several years fleeing from place to place, taking up whatever lowly paid job they could, always fearful for their lives. He made them get money from their families whenever they could.

This carried on until, one day, the police arrested the MI6 agent. Who, of course, turned out not to have been an MI6 agent at all.

So although the people who he recruited had been convinced that they were MI6 agents, who even had documents prepared by the alleged MI6 agent to prove that they were MI6 agents, they were, in reality, not MI6 agents at all. They were, instead, victims of a wicked, calculated fraud by a man who was an amoral fantasist.

There is a very strong parallel with Mormonism, here.

Mormons have written, documentary evidence that they are Christians. They are members of record of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their Elders have their written Lines of Authority.

But they are like the poor souls who were deluded into thinking that they were MI6 agents. All of the documentary evidence that shows they are members of the Christian Church are false papers based on a long-term fraud invented and perpetrated by a group of men, including Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

Happy Thanks Giving and Good evening, followers!

I just thought I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of my American readers/followers a Happy Thanks Giving.

I hope that all is going well and that you are all enjoying yourselves as much as you can.

Whinefest

I have a job. The department I work in is chronically understaffed. There should ideally be 3 or 4 people in it, but there's just me.

This means that arranging holidays is a nightmare and if I have a cold although I'd love to remain at home and coddle it I have to battle on and work.

Some of my colleagues have whined and say: "You shouldn't come to work with a cold! You should stay at home!"

My reply was: "You do realise that if I stayed at home, you would be in difficulties?"

"How?" was the truculent reply.

"Because if I do not come into work then you will not be able to do your jobs and you will lose your commission for the month!"

The worst offender actually becomes very offensive. Forgetting that she regularly brings colds into work!

Two new blogs added to the Notamormon exmo blog list

Notamormon would like to thank the latest two additions to the list of exmormon blogs.

You can find it at the link on the Link section to the right of the site, or here http://notamormon.blogspot.com/2006/04/ex-mormon-websites.html

"Well, what harm can Mormonism do?" Let me explain

If the last time you attended the Mormon Church was before the Three Hour Block Programme was introduced, I doubt you would recognise it as the same Mormon Church.

Regular ward or branch socials? Theatrical presentations and the like? Things of the past, mainly. Rummage or jumble sales, bring and buys? Banned by edict from Salt Lake City.

Remember Sunday School in the morning, with Sacrament meeting in the evening? All gone! All absorbed into the mad, frantic and spiritually sapping Three Hour Block Programme.

Why? Consolidation. All must be the same. You will be assimilated, Borg-style.

This happened because the Mormon Church is run by its civil service, by managers, not by the clergy. Because, of course, the Mormon Church has no clergy.

"Well, what harm can Mormonism do?" An interesting and fair question. Let me direct you to www.exmormon.org. Read the blogs there, read the posts, then read the heart-wrenching stories about how people struggled when they became aware that the Mormon Church was not what they thought it was. When they realised that it was part MLM, part Ponzi scheme and part corporate behemoth, without any real spirit, or soul or religion, when they realised that the name Jesus Christ over the door was a hollow mockery of Jesus Christ.

Read how families are split apart by the Mormon Church, how it sucks money, time, spirit, heart and even the last vestiges of hope from the membership, from the poor, from the downtrodden, from the needy. The very people that it should be helping, it is actually crushing and trampling underfoot.

Sometimes good people within the Mormon Church do good for others. But please do not be deluded! That is against the backdrop of the whole evil edifice that is Mormonism! The great building, the whited sepulchre built by Joseph Smith, a 19th century con artist that made Charles Ponzi seem like a no-account dilettante piker of a confidence man, when compared to Smith whose claim to fame is that his con is still operating over 180 years later!

Mormonism Disproved in less than 3 minutes! (Video presentation)

Halloween

My first experiences of Halloween was courtesy of the Mormon Church. Until we were introduced to the idea of Trick or Treat and the Halloween Party, Halloween had been nothing but some apple bobbing and very little else.

But the Mormon Church, being an almost exclusively American institution, changed all that and, in its own way, helped pave the way for a revival of Halloween activities that, until fairly recent times, been a largely forgotten and moribund festival, with only a few small pockets of places in Britain where the old ways had held sway, still marking Halloween and the older native religious festivities that had taken place before the first Christian missionaries had found their way to the British Isles.

Still, happy Halloween, All Saints Eve, Samhain to everyone, believers or otherwise!

Heading toward Christmas

It's late October and as we head toward the festival of Christmas it seems strange to look back on the year behind us.

Last Christmas I missed my company Chirstmas party because I fell ill with the flu. Colleagues who had not had the flu shot were much worse off than me and spent the entire Christmas and New Year ill in bed.

The year seemed to go very quickly and in September I found myself in California. Something I'd always wanted to do but never thought I would achieve.

California is a very beautiful country / state and I would like to visit it again. Will I be able to do so? Maybe not, but we shall see.

Finally got the antibiotics

After a week of coughing and keeping Mrs Matt awake at nights, and having work colleagues complain about his terrible cough, Matt finally went to the doctor where he was diagnosed with a nasty chest infection.

It happens every October, a viral cold leads to a secondary bacterial infection which causes a nasty, productive cough. And I finally have to get the antibiotics. It's so regular you could almost set your clock by it.

My wife works at the hospital in which my doctor rents space in the grounds so I waited for my wife to finish work and we were going to the late duty chemist's shop when we found someone collapsed at the side of the road on the pavement/sidewalk.

He was on his side and snoring. Of course, there was the possibility that he was drunk, but the last time we found someone collapsed like that he had gone into a diabetic coma, so no point in making judgements on people and someone who is drunk could choke to death. We had some problems getting the emergency operator to understand the location but eventually an ambulance, a police car and a police can turned up.

We then left to continue our journey home. Too late to get my prescription filled, so I'll get that done this morning in the chemist that is round the corner from my office.

Oops! Memory loss of computer at work!

My computer at work has an 8.5Gb hard drive. It suddenly flashed up a "low memory on C Drive" warning. Lucky, really, as the IT engineer happened to be on site.

Apparently being down to only 23Mb of available memory from 8.5Gb is NOT a good thing.

He cleaned 1.5Gg of crap off it (mainly Windows error reports and bits of random Microsoft bloatware, I think) but we are looking at a second drive, internal or external for storing images, etc.

Arm news

My arm was just badly bruised, it seems.

The lump is a haematoma which will, they hope, go down, eventually.

It is a tiny bit smaller, but I fear it will remain as a nasty lump for some time to come, if not for good.

Oh well. We shall just have to wait and see.

More guilt, my dears?

Doubtless in the days and weeks after the Mormon Church General Conference the faithful and less-than-faithful members of the Mormon Church are feeling guilty or, probably, even more guilty than they did before.

They will have been convinced that they should have given the Mormon Church more of their time, more of their money, have done more to spread the word of the Gospel according to Joseph Smith to their friends, neighbours and, indeed, the rest of the world.

They will have been convinced, too, that they should "lengthen their stride", "attend the temple more", "put their shoulder to the wheel", "magnify their calling", "strengthen their testimony", "close their cover before striking" or some other such meaningless platitude.

The General Conference of the Mormon Church: A place where elderly executives of what can be described as the world's oldest MLM pyramid selling scheme or, more accurately, the world's oldest and most successful Ponzi scheme gather to shake down their victims one more time.

Trip to the doctor is indicated

Last week I slipped on some mud and badly hurt my arm.

There was a hell of a lump on my arm just above my elbow, so I visited A&E, had an X-Ray and was told it was not broken, but badly bruised. I was given some powerful NSAI tablets and sent on my way.

A week later the lump has not shown any significant decrease in size, so I am going to visit my doctor and have them take a look at it.

Global warming?

When I was a young man, some people predicted Global Warming. But they were considered to be totally off the wall by the majority of other scientists who predicted that there would be, instead, a period of Global Cooling. Another Ice Age, if you will.

Then, suddenly, the Global Warming theory was in the ascendancy. Why? Well, the cynical wonder if the reason is that some powerful people realised you could make a lot of money out of pretending that CO2 was a vile, evil pollutant (Carbon Credit Exchanges, which change hands for potentiality Billions of Dollars) whereas the only way to make money out of a new Ice Age was to sell more knitwear...

Exclusive Notamormon goods available!

Yes, you too can enjoy owning some special Notamormon merchandise! Bearing the name Notamormon and the legend: "Mormonism, it's OK to say no" they are only available at this link to the Notamormon online shop:-

Notamormon shop

An interesting website

An interesting website -that links to Notamormon, is http://www.monergism.com/online_ministries.php.

It contains links to a wide variety of websites and has Notamormon listed as being a counter cult website. A designation with which, after a second or so of thought, I found I could not disagree with.

Weather now more like it should be for the time of year

Even though the weather is still fairly mild for October, the weather has taken a change for the worst. The unusually warm Indian Summer weather is now gone.

There's rain, the usual higher winds of October and there are reports that we shall soon be suffering from frosts and snowfall. My wife likes the idea of it snowing. I do too, but not as wildly as she!

Mormon General Conference

Yes, the Mormon Church has just had their General Conference.

Members of the Mormon church will have received instructions that they must pay their tithing, be subservient to local Mormon leaders, visit the temple as often as possible and testify to people that the Mormon church is the true church of God.

How do I know this? Because that is all the leaders of the Mormon Church (or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to give it its full title) every say at their General Conferences.

There will also have been a few rather weak jokes, but that will have been about it.

It is, in reality, a slick presentation by a large MLM corporation, rather than a church in any meaningful sense of the word that would be understandable by an outsider. It's like an MLM convention salted with a few hymns and prayers to make it more palatable to the members.

Better weather is here

After an indifferent summer here in the UK, I was fortunate enough to spend a week in Silicon Valley, California.

The weather was gorgeous. Cool and overcast in the early morning, with the sun punching its way through the overcast very quickly to bring a delightfully hot -though not muggy- day. (Muggy is an British word for when the weather is hot and damp.)

When I got back home, it started to rain, so all was normal. And the weather remained normal until this week. I.E., sunny with periods of cloudy weather with some rain.

The weather has become unseasonally warm this week, with temperatures in our sun trap back garden reaching a high of 32C.

It's almost as nice -but not quite as nice- as the weather in California.

When the weather is like this it is known as an Indian Summer, a term borrowed from America.

A question of Tithing and Mormonism

Someone at the RFM board posed an interesting question, recently. It was: "How can Mormons afford to pay tithing?"

My answer to this question is: "Many of them cannot afford to pay tithing."

My parents could not afford to pay tithing. But they did and, as a result, the family suffered.

I well remember when an officious and overbearing Mormon Bishop demanded a meeting with my parents. Apparently he was "concerned" that my parents were not paying a full fast offering, so small was the amount that my parents donated every month.

When my mother showed him her shopping list with each item carefully costed (that was something she always did, in order to eke out my father's miserly wage, we were in a rural area were pay was ridiculously low) he was shocked that our family got by on such a small amount of money for food.

He was shocked, but not shocked enough to offer any financial help to my parents. "The Church Welfare Programme does not operate in Britain" he had told them. "And the fast offering is for poor people." He apparently failed to see the irony in the fact that as he knew what my father's income was and knew the minuscule amount of money my mother spent on food every week that my family was, in fact, poor. But that he declined to offer them any help.

Raptor Jesus; His book

The book is about a man who was born into the Mormon "religion" and who faithfully served a mission, proselytising for his faith.

However, that's when things started to go seriously wrong, from one point of view, or. From another perspective, seriously right. He became quite ill on his mission.

Because of the intense pressure of the religion and the beliefs dealing with faith and healing, he developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when he is not healed by faith and cannot finish his mission.

After searching for answers, he finally discovers that the Mormon church is not what it claims to be and he decides to exit the religion and confront his past. The book skewers the religion and American pop culture as much as it explains them.

Author Raptor Jesus said: “If I were to explain what the book's about in one sentence it would be: The book is about punching the Mormon god right in his f***ing face.”

He went on to say: “The book is aimed at anyone who enjoys a good, naughty joke and has been curious about Mormons or Mormon missionaries. It was written during the same time that the Book of Mormon Musical hit Broadway like a rabid gorilla. The audiences would be very similar.

“I wrote this because I had to in order to recover from my past as much as I could. I also found that everyone who had a strict religious upbringing that didn't want to conform really liked the parallels of their stories with mine.”

The book is available via Amazon. From Amazon.com it costs $3.44 as a Kindle book and from Amazon.co.uk it costs £2.09p.

Santa Clara is cool!

I loved my time in Santa Clara! The meal with exmos did not happen, due to security at San Francisco Airport taking two hours to get through. Apparently it was thought to be a very good idea to send everyone but a tiny handful of staff on break when they KNEW four VERY full 747s would be arriving at pretty much the same time.

So there was the ridiculous spectacle of hundreds of visitors to the USA waiting in a massive line, whilst the domestic arrivals/US citizens staff were sat doing nothing!

Eventually a small woman with a fiery, feisty nature came up, berated them and turned most of the gates from US to foreign visitors. But by the time it was too late to get to the hotel, register for the convention and then sort myself out.

But! I was able to enjoy some drinks with Mrs E and Wine Country Girl from the RFM board, so that did make up for it, as they were delightful company.

Will I be back in San Francisco next year? Perhaps. We shall wait and see!

If you want to know the truth about Mormonism: Ask a Mormon! No. That doesn't work

But that's what Mormonism gets its members to say, isn't it?

The church says to its members: "If someone says: 'Well, I read that the Mormon church believes in such-and-such on a website called www.exmormon.org tell them to ignore that, as that site is filled with nothing but bitter Mormon haters! Tell them that the only way to learn about the truth about Mormons is to ask a Mormon!"

Now, at this point it might be worth asking why the people who use the Recovery From Mormonism board (RFM) found at the website referred to above might be described as "bitter Mormon haters."

In truth the people at RFH -and several other boards and websites for ex-Mormons or former Mormons-are not Mormon haters. But they do have a wide range of issues that might see them described as bitter towards the Mormon church. And for pretty good, solid and valid reasons.

The idea that one can only receive correct information about Mormonism from Mormons is pitiful in its naiveté.

If someone said: "Why, you should not ask other, bitter people formerly involved with an MLM downline about the MLM scheme! You must only ask the people who are currently involved with that MLM scheme!" You would think them to be a bit silly.

Or if someone is asking legitimate questions about a new financial investment that looks too good to be true, nobody in their right mind set would say: "Why, bless your heart! You do not want to be asking the police about this scheme! The only person you should be seeking information from is that lovely Mr Charles Ponzi! Or perhaps there's that charming Mr Madoff!" you would wonder at their sanity.

If you want a sales presentation, ask a Mormon. If you want a perspective on the Mormon church that the Mormon church might not want you to know, ask an ex-Mormon.

I will be in Santa Clara next week

I will be in Santa Clara, next week, from Monday 12th September, for several days. I will be attending a three day conference arranged by Google.

I am hoping to meet up with some exmos in a local eatery on Monday 12th.

Please email me at matt_exmo@yahoo.co.uk.

Mormonism as a Country Club

Let's imagine Mormonism as a very exclusive Country Club which you are invited to join. Membership, you are told is very egalitarian. Everyone pays a membership fee of 10% of their income, so no one pays more than their fair share.

You decide to join and start paying your membership.

After a while you decide it would be nice to enjoy some of the facilities of the club. Can you use the gymnasium? No, you are told, you cannot use the gymnasium of the club.

Well, can you use the steam room? No, you are told that you cannot use the steam room.

Could you use the library of the Country Club? That too, is off limits to you.

Could you have a massage in the health suite? No, that is not available to you.

There is, in the brochure, a high quality restaurant. Can you book you and your family in there for a meal? No, with regret, you are informed that the restaurant is not available, either.

By now you are more than a little frustrated by this. You ask what facilities you CAN use? You are told that you are able to attend weekly presentations as to the benefits of membership of the Country Club and also you can attend special sessions of the Country Club when members who CAN access the facilities denied to you tell you how marvellous being a member is, and how you should live your life as a member of the Country Club.

You ask, with a sense of rising anger, if there is a two tier system of membership at the Country Club? The official who you approach is scandalised by this. But when you question him it transpires that he has never enjoyed any of the facilities of the Country Club, either! But he did once meet someone who knew someone who did enjoy the facilities.

"So, we are expected to pay our membership fees whilst an elite group of members actually enjoy the facilities of the Country Club and we get nothing in return?" you ask. "What are you? Some kind of rebel?" is the shocked response.

Now, at this point, most people would cancel their membership and quit the Country Club. For many people in the Mormon Church this is not an option. Because Mormonism really IS a Country Club for a few very, very few, lucky members (with many more facilities than I have outlined above) who have managed to convince several millions of people round the world that Mormonism is a church and not a Country Club.

Why Mormonism is worse than MLM

Some people have likened Mormonism to MLM. I know where they're coming from, but I think Mormonism is worse than MLM. Far worse.

Let's look at it this way:

If you work seven days a week with Amway (or most other MLM businesses) there is a possibility that you might earn a decent income.

But if you work seven days a week at being a Mormon the only people who do well are the very small amount of people in the Mormon Church who are the the top of the Mormon pyramid.

So no matter how much time and money you give to the Mormon church, you will never earn a penny from all your efforts. And that, in my opinion, is worse than any MLM that is not 100% crooked.

Here's a link to some Exmo cartoons!

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,281413,281413#msg-281413

I hope you will enjoy them!

You can create your own, using the Red Meat cartoon creation engine!

The Iron Rod: ... and I'm an Ex-Mormon

The Iron Rod: ... and I'm an Ex-Mormon

The "cry for help"

Mrs Beagley, the hot sauce torture Mormon mother,has been convicted for what she put her adopted child through.

The narrative, however, has changed. It has changed from bragging about her child rearing methods to a bogus 'cry for help'.

I left this comment on the site of fellow blogger Alexis:

"It was only after she (Mrs Beagley) saw the expression on Dr Phil's face and heard/saw the outraged and horrified reaction of the studio audience that she or her legal team claimed she had gone on the programme as a "cry for help."

It is my memory of that segment of the Dr Phil programme that she (Sister Beagley) had gone on the programme to gain bragging rights for her super-duper child rearing methods.

I honestly believe that she only began to get a slight inking that perhaps her child rearing methods did NOT meet with universal approval (as she expected them to) when she noticed that Dr Phil was NOT impressed and that the entire audience was somewhat hostile toward her.

Sister Beagley is NOT the first Mormon found guilty of such a crime

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,40474,41607

Is this a common Mormon child abuse method? I mean discipline?

A very inspirational speech on human rights

Wow! Old radio broadcasts I made in 1985 and 1987

There's a website that I found that has archived radio broadcasts I made when I was working as a pirate radio DJ in the mid 1980s!

Here's Boxing Day in 1985 https://www.rapidshare.com/files/415461271/WRShropshire-PaulKaye_JohnTurner-26-12-85.mp3

And two years later, September 1987 https://www.rapidshare.com/files/2513233677/WRShropshire-PaulKaye_JohnTurner-25-10-87.mp3

I was using the name John Turner for the broadcasts. I am the second presenter on the first recording.

I mainly presented Progressive Rock.

I had been out of the Mormon church since 1981 or 1982, I forget which, now, it's all so long ago.

"There are two religions in the world" A Salt Lake Tribune article you might like

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/52371397-82/faith-god-arrogant-humble.html.csp

The above article by George Pyle is one of the best articles on religion that I have read in my life. I hope you will enjoy it, too.

A fun writing exercise

Be That Writer is offering a fun writing exercise! To find out how to take part, please visit the following link:-

http://bethatwriter.blogspot.com/2011/08/be-that-writer-update.html

And DO have some fun!

Update

The protests passed fairly uneventfully.

Apparently the police were able to keep 1,000 protesters away from town by not letting their buses reach the town and routing them in such a way as they went home again, instead!

Some people were arrested for a variety of incidents (some public order, bail offences, etc) but events passed off peacefully. Someone did try to cause a riot, but it was stamped on very firmly by the police before it got out of hand.

All praises to the police for handling the situation so well.

Still safe!

Yes, still safe at Matt Towers!

Though it is possible that there could be a riot locally on Saturday (a pre-arranged march which will almost certainly turn nasty) so we are NOT going out and will be battening the hatches over the weekend.

Will keep you updated.

Looting

The so-called riots in Britain are nothing but looting fomented by some agitators who should know better!

The middleclass agitators are causing problems in poor working class areas, but what would they care for the poor people they have caused to be jobless and in some cases, homeless, too, as they caused their homes to be burnt to the ground?

I hope the agitators are jailed for years. But they probably will get away with a slap on the wrist.

How you can promote your blog, spam-free

Please follow the link to the post that you will find and you can start promoting your blog, spam-free, within minutes and it will not cost you a penny.

Be That Writer

'Mormon' leader guilty

The After-Life. Is it a colourful place?

“Science can help us understand the existence of the After-Life more closely” says Regressionist to the Stars, Nicolas Aujula who claims to have uncovered a scientific understanding to where we go after death.

Having Regressed hundreds of clients including British and Hollywood celebrities to past-lives over the years, some of them were able to take themselves to the space between lives known as 'Life Between Lives' described as the After-Life existence.

“I'm going through the tunnel and seeing white light” is a usual statement to hear when exploring 'Life Between Lives' - however the ground-breaking point that many people make is the existence of colours in the After-Life that they have never seen before.

This is where science can help as physicists agree on the fact that there is light and colours we cannot physically sense, we only see a small portion of what is known as the visible electromagnetic spectrum.

Dr Tom Field from Queen's University Belfast comments “There is light beyond the visible spectrum we cannot see and cannot appreciate the colours”.

Nicolas Aujula says “This is a clear sign that the place we go to after death lies at a wavelength invisible to us”. The afterlife interpenetrates the physical world as infinite parallel realities exist holographically everywhere at once.

Just as we create our own experiences in life through our beliefs, expectations and interpretations of our experiences. Similarly, we create our own experiences in death.

Nicolas is now hoping to demystify the After-Life and make it a more understood subject.

You can visit Nicolas Aujula's website - www.inspired-artisan.com

(EDITOR: These are interesting claims. Anyone got any comments? If so please submit them.)

BBQ with red wine

Yesterday evening my wife and I enjoyed a barbecue which we finished off nicely with a bottle of red wine that we shared together.

It was a nice evening, not to hot, not too cold. We ate our food, toasted some bread and reminisced until long after the sun had gone down and the garden was illuminated by our solar lights, which slowly changed colours which made our garden with its statues -including a large Buddha's head- look like a fairy glen, rather than a garden.

It was a perfect moment, as we listened to our African Grey Parrot and our Cockatiel conversing in pure Cockatiel, as our car dozed on the doormat.

Afterwards we went in doors and played Michael Jackson for our African Grey Parrot.

Sometimes, life is beautiful.

Ex-mormon badges not available, yet

Sorry if you were expecting to see some ex-mormon badges available.

I can't create them at present as the site I use for creating badge designs has a failure on that section and might be down for a few days.

Folk i Norge, jeg er så lei for den fryktelige tap som du har opplevd

Folk i Norge, jeg er så lei for den fryktelige tap som du har opplevd.

Mitt hjerte sørger for de som har mistet familie og venner.

Min unnskyldninger for det ufullkomne grammatikk.

Excuse me, but does this film contain a ghost?

Here is a video recording of a stage school performing outside a new pub. It is based on the site of a much older building which was, amongst other things, a pub.

Although nothing was noticed whilst the film was being recorded, a blue orb suddenly makes an appearance floating above the heads of the singers.

What do you think? A ghostly apparition or not?

What is Mormonism? What is the Mormon Church?

Although the Mormon Church would like people to think it is a church, the truth is that rather than being a church it is in reality a large business corporation.

If the president of the Mormon Church decided to close down every Mormon chapel and temple tomorrow, the Mormon Corporation (dozens of different businesses and firms) would in all probability still be able to function without a church membership.

The above is unlikely to happen as the existence of chapels and temples brings in a great deal of money in tithing receipts and, as with all MLMs (legit and non-legit) there is a need for a constant income stream to keep the whole thing afloat.

The difference is that traditional MLMs need money in order to pay income to its members, whereas the Mormon Church/Mormon Corporation does NOT pay the members in its downline a single penny!

With a traditional legit MLM, everyone who works hard will receive some income. But with the MLM that is the Mormon Church/Mormon Corporation only a very tiny number of people actually get any recompense for their time, effort and input.

Would you be a hard-working member of an MLM downline if only the person at the very top got an income? Of course you would not! The idea is utterly unreasonable!

And yet that is exactly how Mormonism works.

If only we could see us as others see us!

As the Scots poet Robert 'Rabbie' Burns wrote:

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"

Or

"Oh would some power the gift give us
to see ourselves as others see us!"

I find it remarkable, pitiful, some times, that there are some people who see the people arround them as some sort of giant distorting mirror.

What do I mean by that? They can see their own faults reflected upon the faces of other people, they project their own faults on to other people.

The bully sees other people as being a bully to them, the person who is quick to anger sees other people as being quick to anger, the person with a problem cannot see that problem in themselves but they can see it in other people.

I once knew a hopeless alcoholic who, when he saw someone have just two glasses of wine, said: "You are drinking far too much! You should watch out! You obviously have a problem with drinking!"

Somehow he had reflected his own problem behaviour on to someone else, seeing his own problems reflected back toward him. But he did not have a problem (of course!) and became offensive to anyone who suggested otherwise.

Jesus mentioned this problem. He spoke of people who can see a mote in the eye of someone else, yet who cannot see the beam in their own eye.

They are always so very helpful to point out your faults and problems and yet they cannot see their own faults and problems. Or is it that they are really aware, at some level, that they are a -for example- a control freak, a bully, or have an abusive personality?

But that somehow, they can turn this around against people who are nearest to them so that they genuinely and honestly believe that they are the saint and not the sinner?

That they are surrounded by other people who are bullies, control freaks, have abusive personalities, etc., etc?

There's an old joke that mocks this type of behaviour: "It's not me, it's the rest of them!"

How many lives and relationships, how many families, how many otherwise promising careers are spoilt, damaged or utterly laid waste because someone, somehow, has learned that to survive one merely has to develop the ability to project one's own faults and weaknesses on to other people?

California or not?

The proposed trip to California is looking a little bit iffy at the moment.

I should be in California in mid-September but for a variety of reasons -all logistical- that is starting to look a little less likely, now.

It might happen, but it is no longer certain.

Oh, well.

The Joseph Smith Dilemma: Well, would YOU have done it?

If someone gave you an opportunity to get riches, respect, authority, leadership and just about ANY sexual partners that you wanted, and as many of them as you could physically cope with, would YOU succumb to the temptation to actually do it?

To actually get those riches? To get the respect? To take that leadership? To have just about any and every sexual partner that you could physically cope with?

Well, yes, morally we would hope to say that we would not do any of those things.

But put it another way. If you could have anything that you wanted, anything that you desired and you knew that nobody would mind, nobody important that is, that you could do whatever you wanted to do with no possibility of any comeback, are you saying that you would be able to shrug your shoulders, smile and say: "No thank you!"

To be honest, I do not know if I could. And that was the dilemma that Joseph Smith found himself in.

But ultimately Joseph Smith found that there was a price to pay.

How about that, then?

How about that, then?

Here we have the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us,
Here we have Saint Peter who also died on a cross, for his Lord,
and here we have Martin Luther King, who died, in the cross-hairs, for his Lord and his people,
and here we have Joseph Smith, who died in a gun-fight. Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear!

More poetry

I fear for them,
I really do,
the Mormons,
trapped,
in the dream of Joseph Smith.

But that wicked dreamer is dead.
So how will those trapped in his dream, escape?

For it is written, 'what of the dream, when the dreamer dies?'
For how can they escape the wicked man's lies?

Some exmo poetry

It's here, at last! A little exmo poetry.

Mormonism, is like a distant thunder,
awaiting the destructive power,
the wind,
the rain,
the family washed away. Gone.

Recovery From Mormonism Board

The board www.exmormon.org is a great resource and forum for ex-Mormons and those who want to learn about Mormonism from those who are not still trapped within the Mormon bubble.

Apparently the board needs to be updated and some money might be required in the form of donations.

I hope to ensure that the Notamormon blog will be able to help the founder of RFM, Eric, raise these funds, whenever Eric decides he wants to launch this.

So, folks, please watch this space!

Weather update? Sunny! Hot, hot, hot! The summer is here, hurrah!!

New free online resource and training course for writers launched

A new free online resource and training course for writers has been launched.

Be That Writer will provide information of interest to writers, some training and some writing exercises to help aspiring or perspiring(!) writers to hone their writing skills.

A spokesman for Be That Writer said: "It's our aim to help you to Be That Writer that you want to be and that you can be. A lot of what you might have been told about becoming a writer is probably nonsense.

"Sadly, some of it is expensive nonsense, as some people who run writing courses can charge worse than a rioting rhino! You do not have to pay for using the resources of Be That Writer, but if you want to, you can make a donation via the site to help us defray our expenses."

Be That Writer will be of help to people who want to write for the fun of it and for those who want to make some income from their writings, as well as having some fun.

The site is operated by experienced writers, the editor-in-chief and publisher has in excess of 25 years as an author and published writer who makes a living from writing.

Beautiful day went a bit pear shaped

Monday was OK up until about 3.00pm when it started to cloud over.

By 5.30pm it started to get a bit breezy and when I went out to walk to meet my wife from work at just before 7pm the nice day had been replaced with a bitingly cold win and driving, torrential rain.

We got soaked to the skin and hot showers and changes of clothing was the order of the day!

"Rain and bitterly cold winds. Brought to you by the British Summer!" Wonderful.

Looks to be a beautiful day

I am waiting for my cup of very strong coffee to cool sufficiently to drink and, at 5.30am BST (British Summer Time) it looks to have all the makings of a beautiful day.

There's a lovely moon high in the sky and the sky is without cloud and the sun is rising and the birds are doing their own things, and I am up at work on my various websites.

Let's hope the promise of a beautiful, glorious June day with some great summer weather is born out by the actuality! I'll report back later and tell you.

Have a great day, everyone!

So far my exmo Sunday has consisted of Zumba dancing with the Nintendo Wii!

My wife bought a new game for the Nintendo Wii, a Zumba dance workout programme.

We tried it at lunchtime and both got a kick out of it. My wife is already very good at it. I confessed to her that I felt as ungainly as an elephant dancing in a ballet tutu, but she just said: "Have some fun, don't take it too seriously!"

Later on I did some Wii steps and some Wii yoga and played several games of Wii tennis and must admit that I am feeling better for it, physically and mentally, too.

If you need to exercise but do not feel comfortable in the gym , or jogging along the road or do not have the time or money for gym membership, I can heartily recommend a Nintendo Wii with the balance board (which also weighs you!) Wii Fit, Wii Fit resort and the Zumba game.

I am losing weight and haven't felt this fit in a long, long time!

Where was the Techno Granny dancing?

Toward the end of the techno granny dancing video I noticed that there was a Ben and Jerry's ice cream stand, which had English signs on it.

I have sent Ben and Jerry's a link to the video and asked them if they could identify where the video was filmed.

If I get some information on this I will share it here.

More crazy weather

It snowed in North Wales (ironically in the part of Wales called Snowdonia) over the weekend. And it is predicted by the weather forecast we saw yesterday that we might have some snow today where we live, in Shropshire.

And yes, at 5.30am this morning we certainly did have snow clouds gathering. Though whether or not it will actually snow or not is another matter. I'll post an update, later on today or tomorrow.

Sunburn hurts

Sunburn hurts. A lot. Especially when it gets to the "never had blisters with sunburn, before" stage.

Even if there's not much sun (apparently) you can still get sunburn.

According to the nurse I saw it will take a couple of weeks before it gets better.

Ouch. Oh, well.

For the personal attention of Alexis

Weird weather event

This morning at 5.15 when I got up, it was beautiful sunshine.

But by 5.45am, a thick fog had suddenly developed.

However! by 7.30am the fog has vanished and the sun is now back and it looks like it will be a very warm, pleasant day.

I'll be stuck in an office in an old building that will still be cold (very thick 16th century walls and half-timbered) but hey, there's the weekend to look forward to!

We might do a barbecue. Well, it IS National Barbecue Week in Britain! Though this will be the first day of suitable weather.

And, of course, no Mormon church on Sunday! Hurrah!

For some details on National Barbecue Week you can visit http://thatsfoodanddrink.blogspot.com

Weather update for Alexis

Alexis, what you say is true, regarding our weather.

It is what makes the British Isles so green, after all. Though there is an area of desert in the East Anglia region, I believe. Not the deserts you know in California, however, of course.

Not far away we do get a sort of tidal event, on the River Severn, it is called the Severn Bore and it is an event caused by high tide in the Severn Estuary which is a long way away.

It's basically a wall of water that flows up the river. Mostly spent by the time it gets to Shropshire, but still interesting to see. I have been able to see it once. Some people closer to the source of the Severn Bore have been known to surf up the river.

And I recall that back in the lack 1960s or early 1970s a popular BBC TV programme called Blue Peter took one of their presenters out on a small boat to film it. The boat capsized and the presenter had to save the life of the cameraman who could not swim.

Some days after they mentioned the disastrous adventure on air, a woman and her child were walking along the river bank and found the TV film camera. The BBC collected it, took it to their processing laboratory (it was a 16mm film camera) and processed the film.

The picture was not perfect but it showed the whole event right up until the moment that the boat capsized and the camera slipped under the water. Very dramatic!

Poor weather for a Public Holiday!

It's a Bank Holiday in Britain. Which, of course, means that the weather has been appalling all day with fairly strong winds and driving rain, both of which made it feel much colder than it really was.

It is brightening up a little now, it is 3.24pm, but hardly anyone has gone out anywhere. No trips to the coast and the fact that this is National Barbecue Week in Britain seems a little ironic. No barbecues today, I fear! Certainly not for us. Maybe next weekend, instead? Weather permitting, of course!

An animation that I liked very much! It is called Heavenly Appeals

Well, here we are, Sunday and the weather is rough

It is a Sunday in late May and supposed to be our summertime in Britain.

The reality is that it has been windy and rainy for several days. So much so that you could be forgiven for thinking it was early October rather than towards the end of May!

My mother tells me she has had to have her heating on, so cold was it earlier in the week.

It is supposed to be National Barbecue Week from 30 May (details at National Barbecue Week) but unless there's a major change of weather I think all the burgers, sausages, fish, steaks, chops, etc, will be cooked and eaten in doors, instead!

Ah well, perhaps it will get better, soon? One can only hope...)

The Story of Stormy and Stormy's One and only as told my him

The story of Stormy and her one and only

The above link will take you to the true and on-going story of Stormy and her one-and-only.

It is a heart-warning story of two lovers who got together and how their true and pure love for each other was crushed by the false religion of Mormonism, but it tells how, despite all of this, they got together again and are to be re-married. Without Mormonism.

Seriously, this needs to be turned into a book and a film.

I might -fingers crossed- be in California in September

Not for long, under a week, probably, but I have an invitation to a business conference of sorts.


I have never flown before, so that would be interesting.

I think soon it wil be time for some exmo poetry

Yes, I will be posting some exmo poetry, soon.

Perhaps rhyming, perhaps blank verse, perhaps Haiku, might even be some magnetic poetry or some special experimental stuff.

Here is a mangled version of a recent post, altered by several passes through Google Translate and turned into an experimental poem:-

Weekend was my birthday

He was 54 years old.

During the six years time, God willing, I'm still here, I'm the seventh decade.

My boss is almost 70 hours, and congratulated me, dressing is a good thing,

when he asked me how old I was.

Surprisingly, however, I think less than they were founded 30 years ago.

I'm certainly a better time.

Do not forget that I was faithful Mormon, then!

And this is a big difference.

Hmm. Interesting. Perhaps it might even have artistic merit? Please let me know what you think!

You can try this yourself, translate it via as many languages as you can, then back into your own language and look at the result.

It was my birthday

Over the weekend it was my birthday.

I was 54 years old. In six years time, God willing that I am still here, I will be sixty.

My boss, who is nearing 70, now, congratulated me on wearing well when he asked me how old I was.

Strangely, however, I feel less mature than I did 30 years ago. I am certainly having a better time. Mind you, I was a believing Mormon, then! And that does make all the difference.

Hayfever

This morning I am suffering from hayfever.

I did not suffer from hayfever as a child, only developing it at about fifteen or so. And now, many summers later, it is here again.

An Olbas-infused paper handkerchief is helping (made, most thoughtfully, by the people at Lotus) and they are available at most chemist shops and supermarkets. Thanks Olbas! Thanks, Lotus!

I have work today and can do without hayfever, but that's me and the millions of other sufferers. Oh well!

Idea for a new book on why people left Mormonism

I am thinking of writing a new book called: "Out of Mormonism."

It would be a book with stories from various contributors who have left Mormonism. Why they left, how they left, etc.

If anyone is interested in contributing, please email me at matt_exmo@yahoo.co.uk

Hello again!

Hello, again.

I haven't been able to post on my blog for a couple of days. Apparently Blogger.com was out for nearly two days.

It seems something went wrong during or after a scheduled maintenance period and it took the Google/Blogger engineers and technical people a long time to figure out what had happened and to fix it.

Well done, folks! You must have put in some long hours! Glad you got us back on line!

Things that make you say: "What???"

The following post is nothing to do with Mormonism, by the way.

Details have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty, but this is, in essence, a true story.

Mr Exx comes home from work one day. He finds his wife in a state of considerable distress and anger. "What on Earth is the matter?" asks Mr Exx, who is concerned and worried about his wife.

"It's that bloody 'friend' of mine, Mary! She just will not leave me alone to get on with any housework! She was here for hours today! Just sat there, gossiping! "

There then followed a sixty minute rant about how evil Mary was, what a worthless person Mary was, how Mrs Exx wished she had never met Mary, etc., etc., etc.

After sixty minutes of this episode of the "Everyone Hates Mary" show, Mr Exx was becoming more than a little agitated, himself. He said: "Well, logically, the best thing to do is tell Mary not to come round to our house, if she is that much of a nuisance to you, and seeing as how much you hate her?"

It was at this moment that a logical disconnect suddenly sandbagged Mr Exx. "Aha!" Shouted Mrs Exx, triumphantly. "Now we have arrived at the truth! You do not want me to have friends! You want to keep me isolated from everyone!"

Apparently, without Mr Exx being aware of this fact, someone had switched channels from the "Everyone Hates Mary" show to a new programme entitled: "Mr Exx, the Evil, Sexist Pig" show.

There then followed a rather rancorous two hour 'debate' in which all of the alleged failings of Mr Exx, and of his parents and his siblings were brought out and made to dance like holographic puppets.

After this, whilst Mr Exx was virtually shaking with anger, having naturally been left feeling terribly upset, Mrs Exx abruptly stopped being a ball of fury, instantly calmed down, smiled sweetly and said: "Do you fancy a cup of tea?"

All Mr Exx could say was: "Yes please," because he knew that if he had said anything else, he would not have been able to control his tongue let alone his temper.

It's probable that Mrs Exx transferred the rage (justified or unjustified) that she felt towards Mary on to her husband, Mr Exx. Is this blame transfer a common phenomenon, or not?

I would be pleased to have your comments on this.

To those of you who had to attend a Mormon church service but do not believe

I am sorry that you had to go through this. Seriously.

I mean, life's difficult enough without having to put up with the added burden of Mormonism.

It must be like having to attend Multi Level Marketing meetings even though you do not want to!

Have courage, my friends! You will be able to escape from Mormonism, eventually!

Mormons are special

Some Mormons, that is. There are many Mormons who seem allowed to get away with any old stuff they care to try, yet some get disciplined for very minor offences, even!

Why is that?

Some people are Mormon Royalty, others are not.

Some get the full three course meal, others merely get the stale bread. Water they can only get if they beg nicely.

'Mormon' Bank in violation of rules. Pays $8M

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US government announced an ciivl money penalty against Zions First National Bank, Salt Lake City, Utah, for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

Zions, without admitting or denying the facts or allegations, consents to an $8 million civil money penalty, which was assessed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and this was satisfied by a payment of $8 million to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

FinCEN determined that Zions violated the requirements of the BSA as it failed to establish and implement an effective anti-money laundering (AML) programme in respect to its foreign correspondent banking relationships with casas de cambio, banks, casas de bolsa and foreign corporate customers, and also failed to file 'timely' suspicious activity reports.

"Both traditional and emerging products and services, such as remote deposit capture, must be accompanied by appropriate compliance measures to manage the risk for abuse," said FinCEN Director James H. Freis, Jr.

"While the violations were to some extent historic, lapses or breakdowns in compliance can nonetheless result in civil monetary penalties, as warranted. Particularly with new product development, financial institutions must stay abreast of emerging risks and informational sources such as government advisories, publications, examination manuals and other relevant materials to mitigate such risks."

(Well, so long as they did it 'prayerfully' that would have been OK, then? Sometimes these kind of things make one wonder...)

20% Discount on Mormonism, Con or Cult!

I just noticed that I can apply discounts to books I publish and sell on Lulu so I have decided to apply a discount of 20% on all sales of the book in order to say thank you to all of my followers on Not a Mormon.

"Is the Mormon church all that it seems? In this highly personal book, the author examines the history and present of the Mormon Church. He poses the question: 'Mormon Church: Con or cult?'"

The link to purchase is on the right side of this blog.

New design on a blog I am following

Alexis over at The Many Banes of My Existance, http://alexisar.blogspot.com has come up with a nice new design for her blog.

Is it time for a new blog design here at Not A Mormon? Well, perhaps it is!

My book, Mormonism, Con or Cult is still available to buy

A little while ago, I decided to publish a book, "Mormonism, Con or Cult?"

It is still available via Lulu at the reduced price of £1.88, though you can, of course, use your local currency to purchase this e-book.

It's based on the material from the early days of my blog, Not a Mormon.

The link to buy the book is on the right hand side of this blog. There's also some totally unrelated Christmas stories for sale there, too!

Osama is dead.

So says the news reports.

I don't know how to view this news. Should I be happy or sad? Or what?

The strange thing is that, far from living a life of austerity in a mountain cave, it seems he was living the type of life his wealthy family had always lived. In a luxury villa, whilst surrounded by some of the world's most awful examples of genuine, heart-breaking poverty, disease and ignorance.

Is it a pity that the vast wealth he had amassed was not used to help alleviate the suffering of some of the poorest, most destitute followers of Islam?

Health care, education, employment opportunities, there is so much that could have been done, which was not even begun, let alone finished.

We watched the Royal Wedding, today

It was a good service. Our African Grey Parrot joined in with the hymn singing and church organ music, and caused us to laugh when at one point in the service she shouted out: "Help! Help! Help!" not entirely sure what THAT was all about!

I spoke with my mother on the phone who was of the opinion that only the British could pull off such a magnificent service. Maybe she has a point.

Two days later, in the warm sea!

We re-visited the Welsh coast today and found the temperature now 26 oC, and we sunbathed (sunblock and hats, natch ;o)) ) and went in the sea again, which was warm today.

We also watched RAF pilots preparing for service in Afghanistan, piloting transport planes low over the sea and then through the Welsh Valleys, below the tops of the mountains. There was a Hercules and a large plane with four propeller engines that were all smoking quite badly. Might have been an older Hercules.

We were in the Welsh seaside resort of Barmouth, a small and delightful town with really nice beaches.

That always happens

Yesterday, we went to the seaside.

After several days of the temperature being higher than in Spain, the temperature of the day we went out was not 26C but 12-13C, instead.

We went into the sea, but did not stay for long, as it was far too cold, even with the Gulf Stream warming the Mid Wales coast as it does. Goodness knows HOW cold the sea would have been otherwise!

But today, of course, the temperature is quite balmy and the sun is out. Typical!

When my blog started

My blog started in February 2006. That's just over five years ago.

During that time I have made a large number of posts on a wide variety of topics. Many on Mormonism and what it is like to be an ex-Mormon. Some, however, have not been about Mormonism and ex-Mormonism, but on topics that I hold dear to my heart. Conservation is one such subject. Not long ago I wrote an article on frog conservation because I believe that frogs are an important part of the web of life.

I have even posted about when my wife and I met the Queen and Prince Philip. Oh. Or have I? I'll check, and if I haven't I'll make that post, soon!

I have published a book based on some of my blog posts. Most people like this, one person thought there were too many swearwords in it. Oh, dear. In my opinion that is one person who cannot cope with life outside the precious Mormon bubble. Hopefully they will learn to cope with life in the real world.

Well, what will the next five years bring? Let's find out together, shall we?!

And thanks for Blogger.com for making the whole thing possible!

Killer reason why Mormonism is not true

The killer reason as to why Mormonism is not true is that Joseph Smith, and several other people, made the whole thing up.

The Book of Mormon was made up from bits of the Bible, bits of other books including even a bit of Shakespeare, and he mined the philosophy of others to add verisimilitude to the whole rotten structure.

Plus, of course, there was the latter stealing of Methodist Church services and formats, the wholesale theft of Masonic Rites, etc., etc.

An oddity of Mormonism

An oddity of Mormonism is that, although the official name of the Mormon Church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Or LDS) is that there seems very little real emphasis on Jesus Christ, himself.

In fact, there is often more emphasis on Joseph Smith the founder of the LDS Church than on Jesus Christ.

Several years ago BYU had a sort of weird Joseph Smith Nativity Scene instead of a traditional Jesus Christ Nativity Scene. And yet Mormons still cannot understand why other Christians can look at them and wonder exactly how Christian the Mormons are.

The writings of Joseph Smith seem to indicate that he thought he was not equal to Jesus but even better than him. Blasphemous? Joseph Smith? Well, you read what's on this link and then see how people might think it so...

http://www.mormoncurtain.com/topic_josephsmithworship.html

Combine THAT with the "Amway, Noni Juice, Nu Skin, Mary Kay, Nature’s Sunshine Products, Herbalife, Nutra-Smart, XanGo, Living Scriptures, 4Life Research, NSA, Pharmanex, Quixtar, Shaklee, Kirby, etc., etc., etc" Multi Level Marketing aspects of Mormonism and see why many people in the world shake their heads and wonder if, perhaps, Mormonism is more a money making pseudo cult rather than being a 'straight' religious cult?

By the way, some of those MLM firms have roots in Utah and were, in at least one or two cases, founded by faithful Mormons...

Why? Why are people so nasty?

As Rodney King Said: "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?"

But there seem to be people hell-bent on NOT getting along. And if they are called on their obnoxious and vile behaviour, then they make YOU a part of the problem! They will then target you, as if, somehow, you were in the wrong for noticing their bad behaviour!

They will special plead as to multiple reasons as to why they should not be called to account or punished for what they have done ("I am under pressure!" "It is that time of the month!" "I didn't know people would take what I did/said so badly!" "It was meant as a joke!" "Nobody understands me!" etc., etc., etc.) but they resent it when it is pointed out that bad behaviour cannot, under most circumstances, be excused.

They seem to think they live in a consequence-free environment, that if they commit act "A" if this leads to consequence "B" that they have no responsibility for what happens when "B" hits the fan.

The idea for this post was started by something that happened to me at work and also by this post at the blog by Alexis, the url for which is here:-

http://alexisar.blogspot.com/2011/04/judge-alexs-facebook-page-turn-for.html

In Park City... Utah? What WERE they thinking?

The Responsible Retailing Forum (RRF) is to meet in Park City, Utah, to Address Preventing the Sale of Alcohol to Kids.

The press release starts of SALT LAKE CITY, April 12, 2011

The Responsible Retailing Forum (RRF), a leading organization in preventing underage sales of alcohol and tobacco, is holding its 9th Annual Responsible Retailing Forum (RRF) in Park City, Utah, from April 12-13, 2011. The meeting is being hosted by Utah's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the theme of this year's conference is: "Leveraging Resources: Non-traditional approaches to achieving responsible retailing in a time of fiscal austerity."

"The meeting will be attended by members of the public and private sector, including alcohol regulators, state attorneys general, law enforcement and transportation, retailers and their associations, distributors, alcohol manufactures and other stakeholders representing 24 states."

I do not care who the Responsible Retailing Forum is, or what they think they are doing. Allowing their event to be hosted by Utah's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control is rather like having King Herod host a Responsible Childcare Forum meeting.

What WHERE these people thinking?

Six am

Yes, it is six am here in the UK, Britain, England and I am busy working on my own websites before I leave for work at 8.15am and start working at 9am on the websites and print magazines I work on for my employer!

It's truly lucky that I enjoy writing so much, isn't it?

Had I still been a Mormon I doubt very much if I would have been able to establish myself as a writer.

There's something horribly stultifying about Mormonism. It seems to sap creativity and to take the pleasure and enjoyment out of so many things in life.

It shouldn't do, but it does. All the meetings and the meetings about meetings and the fact that the day of rest is turned into just another day of three hour block meetings and then the additional meetings that surround that. But wait a minute?! Wasn't the three hour block meeting introduced to stop extra meetings?

Well, in part, yes, I seem to remember that was one of the reasons given, but instead it seems that the leadership allowed their eye to wander from the ball and now meeting seem to breed and grow like viruses.

An interesting point from Alexis re the Alaska case

Alexis raised an interesting point in her comment on the Alaska case.

Why the silence?

It is possibly due to child protection issues. It is often the case that the names of children are kept out of reports on criminal matters, even, or perhaps especially, if the child is an innocent or injured party.

In the UK a journalist cannot name even a convicted person under -I think- the age of 18 in a report of a story, unless a judge has given special permission.

They might be trying to arrange a plea bargain with the woman concerned to try to ensure that the names of the children -adopted or otherwise- are given the least amount of publicity as possible.

Other issues (off the top of my head, interest of the Russian authorities in the case, examining of the mental capacity of the woman to take part in a trial, lack of preparedness of the case by defence or prosecution, etc. A smart lawyer might try to argue that due to the publicity surrounding the case, she would not be able to get a fair trial. But an even smarter prosecutor would say: "Who was it who asked her to get her daughter to video her disciplining the boy and send it to a highly popular national TV programme, seen by millions of people?"

We await developments with interest.

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: Jessica Beagley, Dr. Phil, and Other Things

Alexis asks a very interesting question at her blog which I have linked to here:-

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: Jessica Beagley, Dr. Phil, and Other Things: "Jessica Beagley, the Stake Primary President of the LDS Church who appeared on Dr. Phil to share, highlight, or lament her childrearing prac..."

It is the Royal Wedding, soon!

The royal Wedding is soon. Later this month, in fact. Everyone in Britain has been given a day off to celebrate the Royal Wedding, or to ignore it, as they see fit.

I am somewhat ambivalent to the Royal wedding. Unlike some people I do not follow everything the Royal family does, but unlike other people I have nothing against them. In fact, I am something of a Royalist. The system of government that we have (with the King or Queen in a fairly ceremonial position only, with certain exceptions) works, by-and-large, quite well and my rule is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

The Queen or King never has to go out on the hustings, never has to indulge in electioneering and can, sometimes, back a cause that might not be very popular, but is the morally right thing to offer their support to.

A president, however, might shy away from such activities if -for example- it is within several years of his or her election.

The system is fairly cheap (in fact the Crown Estates generates far more income than is spent on the Queen and the rest of the Royal family) and the Queen also pays taxes, though legally speaking, she doesn't have to, but does it voluntarily, instead.

Plus there is the tourism industry and the amount of income the Royal family generates. Far better, one would suggest to say: "That's where the Queen lives, and as the Royal Standard is flying, she is at home, now," than: "That's where our Royal family used to live, when we had a Royal family.

"Oh, look! Over there is a poster for the election of the president. He is likely to be re-elected as a couple of months before the election he introduced a new law that, although popular with much of the electorate, might be seen to be grossly unfair on certain minorities. But shhhh! We'd best not talk of such matters, as the Presidential Intelligence Service have spies everywhere!"

The desperate acceptance of Mormonism. It doesn't have to be this way

The desperate acceptance of Mormonism, it doesn't have to be this way, is the title of this post.

What do I mean by the desperate acceptance of Mormonism? My parents became Mormons when I was ten years old. As a family we all had the lessons from the missionaries who all had those little portable reel to reel tape recorders/players with the small-sized tapes reels that fitted on the top. I remember that when their was a quiet passage on one of the tapes the electronics in the tape player (they must have been incredibly badly shielded!) would pick up short wave radio transmissions. Often, ironically, Radio Moscow!

We all believed, my mother more so than anyone, I think, and we were all baptised. But when I was baptised I felt a strange, unpleasant feeling in my chest. It was as if something was wrong, very badly wrong, but I did not know what. In fact, it was not the baptism so much as the Confirmation that made me feel this way. I later rationalised this by telling myself it was the power of Satan trying to disturb my, or something.

When I was 16/17 I began to notice things that weren't quite right with the Mormon Church. But, as people say, I put them on a shelf and ignored them. I became an elder, served as a primary teacher, became Ward Executive Secretary but when I was in my early to mid 20s, I began to have doubts, serious doubts. But I internalised these. It was, I felt certain, all my fault. If I pray, all would be well. But I felt that there was something wrong with me. I had what I can only describe as a desperate acceptance of Mormonism. If Mormonism was not right, then what was?

Then one day I received an answer to my many prayers. I then knew that Mormonism was a fraud. It was like a heavy weight being removed from my shoulders. Like a yoke filled with sacks of cement being taken off. That was in 1981/82. It wasn't until the late 1990s when I found RFM (I had realised I might not be the only ex-Mormon and searched using the term ex-Mormon, imagine my shock and joy when one of the first sites I found was RFM!) it was a long and continuing process of learning and discovery, of finding out that not only was Mormonism not true, but a deliberate fraud and the damage it has caused -and causes to this very day- in the lives of millions of people.

I gave up my quiet, desperate belief in Mormonism. It wasn't easy. But as the first man to swim the English Channel, Captain Webb, said: "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy."

Remember Save the Frogs Day!

SAVE THE FROGS DAY EVENTS PLANNED WORLDWIDE APRIL 29TH
Prince’s wedding coincides with the world’s largest day of amphibian conservation

Santa Cruz, California Was Prince William a frog in a past life? Quite possibly, since he chose his wedding to take place on the 3rd Annual Save The Frogs Day, a worldwide celebration of amphibians also scheduled for April 29th. Frog lovers and environmentalists of all ages are gearing up for what is expected to be the largest day of amphibian education and conservation action in the planet’s history. The goal of Save The Frogs Day is to raise awareness of the rapid disappearance of frog species worldwide. Events are being planned in at least 15 countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, South Africa, and Australia. The events are being coordinated by SAVE THE FROGS! (www.savethefrogs.com), a California-based nonprofit dedicated to amphibian conservation.

Amphibian populations worldwide have been declining at unprecedented rates, and nearly
one-third of the world's amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Up to 200 species
have completely disappeared in recent years. Amphibians are faced with an onslaught of
environmental problems, including climate change, pollution, infectious diseases, habitat loss,
invasive species, and over-harvesting for the pet and food trades.

“The goal of Save The Frogs Day is to get people worldwide educating their fellow citizens about the plight of amphibians and ways they can help” says Dr. Kerry Kriger, Founder & Executive Director of SAVE THE FROGS!. “We are certainly hoping that Prince William and Kate Middleton will become spokespeople for the frogs, which are the most rapidly disappearing group of animals on the planet.”

The royal pair are not the only British couple with nuptials scheduled for Save The Frogs Day.
Frog fanatics Sabrina Jayne Labrina and Simon Pittman of Bournemouth set their big day to
coincide with Save The Frogs Day, and have even asked guests to donate to donate to SAVE
THE FROGS! in lieu of gifts.

Some other events scheduled for Save The Frogs Day include a large rally at the steps of the US
Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. “There are 18,000 registered pesticides in
the United States. One of the worst is Atrazine, an endocrine disruptor that can turn male frogs
into females at 2.5 parts per billion” says Dr. Kriger, who will be leading the rally and speaking
in front of the White House afterwards. Atrazine was banned in the European Union in 2004,
but eighty million pounds of it are used in the USA each year, primarily on corn. “Atrazine is

the 21st century’s DDT. We want it banned.” A frog legs protest will take place at a New York-
based chain restaurant that sells frog legs. In San Francisco, SAVE THE FROGS! supporters will
gather at the steps of City Hall to call on the city to save the Sharp Park Wetlands. The wetlands
are home to endangered California Red-Legged Frogs, but San Francisco currently pumps the
wetlands out to sea to accommodate a public golf course.

On the less serious side, Toronto’s frog enthusiasts will be celebrating Save The Frogs Day
with their 2nd Annual Frog Leap-a-Thon, a 250 meter race down the city’s boardwalk. Students
at Texas Tech University will attempt to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records
by organizing the largest gathering of people wearing frog masks in planetary history. In
Bangladesh, a 2km Frog Run is set to take place in the town of Chittagong. Students and teachers
in several countries will be taking part in the SAVE THE FROGS! Art & Poetry Contests, which
received entries from 27 countries last year.

You can learn more about Save The Frogs Day and events in your area, at:
www.savethefrogs.com/day

(EDITOR: The formatting is still not 100% right, but it will have to suffice for now)

Posting on World Frog Day scrapped

A posting on World Frog Day has been scrapped as the formatting went wrong. I'll try to load it up, later.

Mormons that are pseuds

There are some Mormons that are pseuds. They pretend that they have great knowledge. I recall one idiot, sorry!, one General Authority (I can't remember who he was, save that he was from Utah) who said to a Stake priesthood conference session when he was addressing the Aaronic Priesthood that the boys there knew more than the most learned religious scholars (he used the term scholars in a mocking, ironic fashion) and had more power in their little finger than the Pope and also more power in their little finger than their own mothers.

This statement bothered me and when I mentioned this to my mother she said: "Perhaps he should remember who did his cooking, ironing and cleaning and who looked after him when he was a little boy?"

Looking back on it, I can see that he was going against Bible teachings: "Honour Your Parents, but don't bother to honour your mother" is not in any Bible I have ever seen. But then, perhaps it is in a spcial Bible for pseud Mormons who pretend great knowledge of af all things, yet know far, far less than even the most relatively unlearned Bible Scholar?

Have you watched or listened to the Mormon General Conference?

I must admit, I have not.

The last time I bothered with the Mormon General Conference was when I was a believing Mormon in the early 1980s.

Since then, I have not bothered. Well, why on Earth would I? I know there's an argument for bothering to keep up with it so you know what they are up to, but I really cannot be bothered, to br quite frank!

Spring is here!

The clocks in the UK and in Ireland went back last weekend. Spring Forward, Fall back is an easy way to remember what we should do with the clocks. (Incidentally, Fall was the original name for Autumn in the UK, but Fall (short for Leaf Fall) fell out of favour in the UK, but is still more common than Autumn in the USA. Which is good, because Fall is a very evocative word.)

Lighter evenings, and the typical March weather, high winds, sunny spells and a fair amount of rain. March, it is said, comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. And then? Why then we have April, which is known for the April showers. Mind you, never cast a clout 'til May is out is the saying. Clout meaning coat/garment, and cast to cast off, or remove said garment. It means you can get frosts until quite late on in the month of May.

Well, happy Spring, folks!

That old passive aggression trick again

Is there someone in your life who likes to employ that old passive aggressive technique in order to goad you into an argument?

A sibling, partner, wife, husband, child, parent, employer, church leader, boss or co-worker?

They ask you apparently sweet and reasonable questions, try to help you by pointing out your many and varied faults: "I am really only doing this for your own good. You DO understand that, don't you?"

They also act like master magicians, employing techniques of misdirection and the verbal equivalent of prestidigitation that would make members of the Magic Circle gasp with admiration.

You also get blamed for things that are not your fault, and you are blamed for events that are beyond your control or totally outside your sphere of influence. This can often involve a masterful technique known as blame transfer. If X makes a mistake they often feel unable to take responsibility so they will blame the nearest person for that mistake.

"If YOU had not been standing there, I would not have dropped that bottle. Therefore even though I dropped the bottle it was your fault!"

"I had an argument with someone whilst I was out. I did not feel brave enough to call them on their bad behaviour. So somehow, and although this does not seem fair or logical, I will come home and foment an argument with you so that I can take out my anger and frustation on you!"

"Your brother/sister is special. You are not. I will make you the sacrificial goat aka whipping boy/girl so that the bad behaviour of your brother/sister will not go unpunished. It may seem unfair that your brother/sister gets away with their bad behaviour whilst you are unfairly punished, but that's just how things are, here. And, in years to come, when we have turned your brother/sister in to a monster, we will work out some passive-aggressive way of blaming YOU for that totally predictable turn of events, too."

Jealous?

Are some Mormons jealous of ex-Mormons? Do they resent the fact that we are perceived, by them and their fellow Mormons, as being more free than they are?

That if we want to drink tea, coffee alcohol, or a decaffeinated drink, that we can do so, without breaking the somewhat weird word of wisdom?

Is that why? Readers, please tell me what you feel about this via the comment section of this blog. Thank you!

An update on St Patrick's Day

Reader and online friend Alexis raised an interesting point. She wanted to know if Ireland celebrates St Patrick's Day in a similar way to America.

From what I can make out St Patrick's Day parades happen as bonding rituals outside of Ireland as a way for people of Irish decent to celebrate not only St Patrick's Day but to remember and celebrate their link with Ireland.

In Birmingham, my home town, there's a fairly big St Patrick's Day parade and much Guinness is drunk all over the UK in commemoration of the day. My wife is Catholic so it's a fairly big deal in our home. Though we often celebrate St Patrick's Day in the company of an atheist and her Sikh boyfriend!

In Ireland they look askance at things like dying beer and pet dogs green as I am led to believe sometimes happens in America. I think they take it a bit more as a serious religious festival, though do know how to party. As I know to my cost having had to help a very dear but sadly departed old Irish friend drink a large amount of wines, beers and spirits that she found in her cupboard. A couple of years ago we drank Champagne at least 40 years old with the price on it in Pounds, Shillings and Pence, the old currency not used since 1971 when we went decimal!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Yes, Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all the readers of my blog!

Japan

What can one say? The situation in Japan is horrible. The Earth quake followed by the Tsunami and how many people dead and homeless?

And so many homeless people aching for the return of family members and little children sobbing because they'll never see their pet dog, cat, rabbit or guinea pig ever again. And yes, those things ARE important to children.

It seems that every country, even some of the poorest, are sending something, such is the horror at what has happened.

It's time to do whatever we can, no matter how small it might seem. I will be making a donation toward the weekend. It's a small thing that I can do, but apart from praying, there's very little else that can be done.

Mormonism

Why does Mormonism cause such pain and such confusion and problems?

Is it because it was founded in bad faith? Created as a way to generate income for Joseph Smith and his family and a group of key followers? And as a way to get them as much illicit sex as they wanted?

After all, how could something good come out of something that was rooted in something that was so base and immoral?

We finally bought a Nintendo Wii!

Yes, we finally bought a Nintendo Wii!

As part of my wife's birthday present, we bought her the Wii Fit+ with the balance board. We used one of these several times at a friend's house and we liked it very much, so it was an easy buy for this year's birthday present for my wife!

She set it up this evening whilst I was entertaining out parrot in the study (she comes out of her parrot tower every evening for a couple of hours time with me, listening to Michael Jackson) when I came down later I had myself weighed by the Wii and I have lost some weight, I am 95kg, 15.5 stones.

I tried some of the exercises, but got on best with the freestyle stepping, doing 800 of these for the first time to see how it went. Well, I think!

We also played some tennis later (against the Wii) and my game is improving enough that I actually won some sets!

If you need exercise and can't be bothered with a gym, buy yourself a Wii, but get the balance board and the Wii Fit+ stuff. It means that you can get exercise, but without the expense of a gym membership that you probably -if you are like me!- would never seem to have enough time to go to attend the gym sessions.

But just switching your Wii on at home? Well, that's easy. Plus there's no need to waste time travelling to and from the gym!

The situation in New Zealand

The situation in New Zealand is dreadful and my heart goes out to the people in Christchurch who are suffering so dreadfully.

Has anyone set up a fund for offering financial help? If so, please leave a comment containing these details. Thank you.

Oedd Mormonism gwneud gelwyddog allan o chi?

Oedd Mormonism gwneud gelwyddog allan o chi?

Wyf wedi gweld pobl a ddaeth yn Mormons fel gweddus, gonest bodau dynol yn dod yn gelwyddog. Nid yw'n dros nos, mae'n cymryd amser, ond mae hynny'n digwydd.

Mae'n dechrau gyda llaeth o'r blaen cig, ond mae hyn yn aml fel esgus i ddweud yn gorwedd amlwg i bobl.

Er enghraifft, Mormons wedi gofyn Mormons eraill: "Ydyn nhw'n wisgo i fyny mewn gwisgoedd y deml LDS?"

Bydd yr ateb fel arfer yn cael ei "na!" Pa un yw, wrth gwrs, yn gelwydd.

You will notice that the above post in in Welsh. This is because my family originates in Wales and I want to say something in the language of my ancestors. Sadly the last person in my family with any Welsh was my late grandmother, so I have used Google Translate to translate this post into Welsh.

It is a translation of the previous post.

Did Mormonism make a liar out of you?

Did Mormonism make a liar out of you?

I have seen people who became Mormons as decent, honest human beings become liars. It's not overnight, it takes time, but it does happen.

It starts out with milk before meat, but this is often used as an excuse to tell blatant lies to people.

For example, Mormons have been asked by other Mormons: "Do they dress up in costumes the LDS temple?"

The answer will usually be "no!" Which is, of course, a lie.

The weather

Well, it's 2.52am and we are not sleeping. Due to the storm force winds that are battering our house.

The storm force winds that the Met Office forgot to tell us about until 24 hours AFTER they started.

I am not amused by their ineptitude. Perhaps if they spent more time predicting the weather than running computer models of global warming, they might be able to do a better job?

Should we expect that?

There's a newspaper website that carries news stories. (Doh! What else would it carry?!) Last Friday it carried a story about a new bra company in the UK called Curvy Kate (it's for ladies with large busts) and it is running a competition for women to model these new bras.

The hits on that story is about 5 to 6 times higher than for the other stories that the website runs!

www.curvykate.com is the website involved.

Should we have expected that? Or not?