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I once took a class taught by a sly French-Canadian lecturer with a propensity to chuckle at his own jokes, as though they were intended primarily for his own amusement. One of my classmates, a Polish immigrant with all the correct Euro-liberal attitudes (atheist, socialist, vegetarian, etc.) liked to engage our teacher in debates about religion. One time, this student tried to short-circuit the debate with the common trick of challenging his opponent to concede belief in something so out of touch with modernity that his position would seem laughable.

Is the media really trying to convince us that someone other than Satan himself has taken over America?  It didn’t start with Obama, but we could at least begin to take our country back by being rid of Obama next election.

The birth control battle is another reminder that entitlements and freedoms do not coexist well, even if we set aside the economic issues, because entitlements end up intruding into the spaces of freedoms. As the United States undergoes the process that replaces the negative right to be left alone with the positive right to be taken care of in every way possible, these conflicts will only worsen.

Heralded as one of the great natural amphitheaters of the world, Cedar Breaks will take your breath away not simply because of its eroded beauty and exceptional panoramic views, but also because it sits on top of a mountain on the edge of the Markagunt Plateau at 10,300 feet above sea level where clean air is paper thin and often blows very hard and steady like it did when we visited one recent golden autumn. Bobbing and weaving, while my beleaguered heart rumbled in my chest, I leaned into the wind, gasped for air and stood in amazement at Point Supreme and the Sunset View Overlook, two places you don’t want to be during a July lightning storm.

The sheer size caught me off guard the first time I inched toward the edge where the land falls away abruptly exposing terrain shaped like the folds of a curtain, plunging chutes and exposed ridges and rocky forests of freestanding buttes and fin walls, stone arches and the hoodoo army which quite frankly reminds me of Bryce Canyon; everything painted pink and orange, and shades of purple. It’s a slow, methodical process focusing on individual pieces that make up the whole, assimilating the mosaic and assigning it a proper place in your mind.

Commonly referenced as the “underwear bomber” or the “Christmas Day bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was sentenced to life in prison last week by U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds in a Michigan court.  He unexpectedly pleaded guilty on October 12, 2011 (day two of his trial) to eight felony counts, including attempted murder and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, related to reported attempt to detonate an explosive hidden in his underwear while aboard Northwest Airlines flight 253 flying from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009. There were 279 passengers and 11 crewmembers aboard that flight.