Have a detailed conversation with deeply committed Mormons and they often will talk pretty much the same way about those details. Believe it or not, Mormons are kinda defensive about being thought of as "weird."

A girl I went to high school with is from a family of Mormon Democrats. Her father is a scholar who has spent a lot of time searching for evidence of the tribes depicted in the Book of Mormon... in Central America. With a straight face. A grown man.

He's still looking.

If, as a child, you are taught these things are true by your parents, it takes a great deal of character to think maybe they were wrong. No matter how much evidence there is that they were. See The Allegory of the Cave.

Missouri, eh? Did J.C. get rid of Andy Williams so he could take his boffo loaves'n' fishes act to Branson? I hear his encore is so good it makes the dead rise!

This Mitt Romney—the Romney who believes that he's not being recorded, who is really the only honest Mitt Romney—doesn't seem like he's able to separate his faith and his office.

In what world could someone doing a radio interview not think that he is being recorded?

I don't get why the low information voters keep saying they don't like Obama because he's "angry". I think "angry" must be a euphemism/dog whistle for "black".

really. magic underwear is bad no matter where you wear it. on your bottom or on your brain. both candidates seem to sport these pants.

@8 & @9 - I have no objection to a candidate who prays, or who believes in things that cannot be proven, provided I am not to be governed by the legislation of ethics and morals unsupported by empirical demonstration of civic utility. I think--and it seems to me that Paul thinks--that the anger is the real story here.

The mocking of the guy's beliefs--however counter-intuitive and counter-factual I may find those beliefs--strikes me as unnecessary, but one could argue that all mockery is unnecessary in the particular, if absolutely indispensable in the general.

For my part, I think that Yeshua, to the limited degree that he can be shown to have existed at all, was a great philosopher, rabbi, and bodhisattva who is now dead, and won't be living anywhere ever again, except symbolically as a set of persistent cultural memes.

4 more days and we'll never have to hear from this fucker again.

I recognize this cranky, defensive Romney-thing as a fellow human. He is much better than the current Republican nominee-bot.

Think of the increase in Missouri property levels once God lives there. "100 acre lot with an unobstructed view of the Lord Almighty, shovel-ready: $1 billion."

I wonder how much of Missouri Romney owns. After all, it would seem like a zero-risk proposition to someone with absolute faith.

He is a dick and he treats people that way because he thinks he can operate under a different set of rules. He can be patronizing and unpleasant and aggressive and it's OK because - as a Mormon male - if he's doing it, it's a holy act.

Mitt Romney: Loves money, hate people.

I'm even more surprised that Romney's anger hasn't become more of a story. . . .

It is a story. It's been a story for a long time. You just haven't noticed it. Dude is not a happy camper. He's obviously very angry that the 1% have to pretend to give a shit about the rest of us.