Deseret Storm

Beauty in truth, grace in revision. Latter-day Saint by choice. Contrarian by accident. Raising kids, objections, and the occasional eyebrow.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@nicoraytruth @NoblestCalling The temple is the natural place to find Latter-day Saint liturgical maximalism. I do not think there is a close analogue elsewhere in Christendom, but its ritual grammar is much closer to e.g., Orthodoxy than anything I'm familiar with in Protestantism.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@KimballCall I asked my wife if she had been recruited by the CIA at BYU Jerusalem. She replied, "What are you talking about?" with precisely the same bemused, polished affect they taught me.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@KimballCall There's actually a tunnel under the center that goes straight to Mossad headquarters.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@UtdManvcho "Why does the second-to-last defender have to be completely past the attacker to draw the offside call, but it's not a goal if the ball is just a hair inside the playing field?"

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@fedginator Tennis calls, strike zone calls, and even soccer goals are routinely much closer than this.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@JustinMacmahan Maybe it's not the sport you thought you were watching, or the sport you wanted to watch, but it is the sport they're playing.

It's not "it would have been a goal but for offsides." If offsides weren't a defensive strategy, it wouldn't be defended this way.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@KelseaJ112 @GovCox I don't completely blame Cox as it's ultimately up to the municipalities. But it gave them the excuse needed for outright bans when appropriately calibrated policy would have sufficed.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

OpenAI announces three degrees of glory.

[OpenAI @OpenAI]

Introducing a limited preview of GPT-5.6 Sol, our next generation frontier model, as well as GPT-5.6 Terra, a balanced model for efficient, everyday work, and GPT-5.6 Luna, a fast and affordable model for high-volume work.

https://t.co/OoM83SyISN

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

This was Rorschach test for Provo. And they seemed to have failed it.

Everyone understands the rationale for a ban: dry conditions, limited resources, heightened ignition risk. But Utah has significant fire risk every year, and citizens deserve a real explanation for why safe areas, pavement-only use, supervised public lots, stricter time windows, or some other targeted policy was suddenly impossible.

Without that explanation, this does not signal prudence or competence. It signals lazy, unserious risk theater.

I’m not even convinced the blanket ban is obviously safer. If the problem was already disproportionately illegal use in prohibited areas, a total ban may simplify enforcement, but it may also push some people into less visible and riskier places.

But the broader concern is this: if the city defaults to some insufficiently justified maximalist position on a narrow issue citizens can actually evaluate, why should we trust its judgment on issues where we have far less context?

[ABC4 News @abc4utah]

As fire danger has only increased and temperatures have gotten hotter, the cities of Provo and Lehi announced fire and firework restrictions on Monday. https://t.co/AjIDDX42fT

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@chris4auditor @LindsayOnAir @GovCox @abc4utah The current fires have not been attributed to fireworks. As far as I can tell, last year’s fireworks fires were not caused by people following the rules in legal areas.

The failure mode was already illegal. This is just lazy bureaucratic risk theater.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

This is not about fireworks. It is about governing instincts. Fire danger exists every year. That is why targeted restrictions existed: foothills, brush, dry open land, actual risk zones. And they worked. Utah was not being burned down by dads lighting legal fountains on Provo pavement. A total ban, which is in effect, is not prudence. It is the refusal to govern with judgment. It says every place is high-risk, every citizen is reckless, and every normal tradition is a liability problem. And this kind of draconian policy may very well induce more fireworks being lit in higher risk zones.

Fireworks may seem like a trivial issue. But the signal is not. If you cannot make a proportional rule for a once-a-year issue with an obvious risk map, I do not trust your instincts on anything harder.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@jkimballcook Disagree. "The same is true here" sounds very weird when restricted to 4 syllables.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@muttilolly @nicoraytruth “Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation” (Lectures on Faith, 6:7).

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@nicoraytruth Naturally, we don’t need evangelical permission to be Christian. But we also shouldn’t concede being defined out of Christianity by hostile taxonomy, especially when that framing reaches oblivious third parties and bleeds into law or culture or diminishes missionary efforts.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@nicoraytruth On the contrary, there are too few philomormon Catholics with cyberpunk Brigham Young avatars on this platform. The apparent paradox makes you one of the most interesting follows here.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@NeverRepentant @nicoraytruth Point 2 is even stronger than that: in the temple you covenant to consecrate everything you have. An honest tithe is inherently prerequisite. It would be strange, even wrong, to invite someone to promise total consecration while they knowingly refuse the lesser obligation.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@TeeplesCY Agreed. The baseline should be the height of the unleaned tower.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@NoblestCalling @jkimballcook You can't even get past the first sentence of Moby Dick.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@mjolley22 I thought pickle juice was Utah’s official cramp panacea.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@Mormonger It’s the only religion where the game starts with a hanged man, even when no wrong letters have been guessed.

[Deseret Storm @DeseretStorm]

@Mormonger It shouldn't take more than one week in primary to know to guess 'E' before 'J'.