How a high ranking Mormon lost his faith

How did this high ranking Mormon lose his faith? It wasn't the result of someone getting in his face and telling him he was an idiot. The NYT tells the story:

When fellow believers in Sweden first began coming to him with information from the Internet that contradicted the church’s history and teachings, he dismissed it as “anti-Mormon propaganda,” the whisperings of Lucifer. He asked his superiors for help in responding to the members’ doubts, and when they seemed to only sidestep the questions, Mr. Mattsson began his own investigation.

But when he discovered credible evidence that the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the Book of Mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, Mr. Mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.

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Jump start to the origin of life?

Was the origin of life willy-nilly? Or was it primed by pre-existing affinities in non-living matter that gave the creation of the first replicating for of life a jump start? New Research suggests the latter:

The chemical components crucial to the start of life on Earth may have primed and protected each other in never-before-realized ways, according to new research led by University of Washington scientists. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-natural-affinitiesunrecognized-nowmay-stage-life.html#jCpIt could mean a simpler scenario for how that first spark of life came about on the planet, according to Sarah Keller, UW professor of chemistry, and Roy Black, UW affiliate professor of bioengineering, both co-authors of a paper published online July 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This article reminds me of some of the theoretical work done by Stuart Kaufmann of the Santa Fe Institute. Both the affinity of matter to tend toward life and autocatalysis reduce the space of possibilities, making life less of a needle in a haystack proposition.

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The most transparent administration strikes again

In regards to the Amash amendment which would have de-funded the portion of the NSA earmarked to spying on American citizens (which was narrowly voted down last night), the office of the President's Press Secretary :

In light of the recent unauthorized disclosures, the President has said that he welcomes a debate about how best to simultaneously safeguard both our national security and the privacy of our citizens...we oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism tools. This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process.
My irony alarm was so overloaded by this statement that I had to turn it off because all the neighbors were complaining. To show just how much the President values an informed, open, process, he sent the head of the NSA to brief members of Congress:
NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander scheduled a last-minute, members-only briefing in response to the amendment, according to an invitation distributed to members of Congress this morning ...The invitation warned members that they could not share what they learned with their constituents or others. "The briefing will be held at the Top Secret/SCI level and will be strictly Members-Only," reads the invite.
Ha! How's that for open and informed? [More . . . ]

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