Awesome real-time summaries at Message and Advocate, posted by BT permablogger Guy Murray (with apostles speaking in each session noted in parentheses):

• Saturday Morning (Hinckley, Oaks, Ballard, Faust)
• Saturday Afternoon (Hales, Wirthlin, Uchtdorf, Scott)
• Saturday Evening Priesthood (Eyring, Faust, Monson, Hinckley)

Other Bloggernacle posts on Saturday Conference:

• Spinozist (summaries for all sessions).
• T&S open thread.
• BCC open thread.
• On Not Being a Fan of Conference (BCC).
• Young Men Stuck in Neutral (Mormanity).
• Stories and Analogies Gone Awry (LYMA).
• Guilt, on Elder Ballard’s talk (Ponder It).
• Priesthood session, notes on first hour (M-Star).
• Priesthood session, notes on second hour (M-Star).

Mainstream media posts:

• SL Trib summary of Saturday sessions (headline: Hinckley seeks more converts in North America; the Mormon leader also urges LDS boys to stop cursing and hit the books).
• Short SL Trib story on Pres. Hinckley’s announcement of a huge LDS investment in redeveloping the ZCMI and Crossroads malls, two square blocks just south of the sprawling Temple Square campus.
• DN summary of Saturday sessions (headline: Plea for discipleship — LDS urged to follow Christ).

They were certainly due.

It all came together tonight for BYU at #15 TCU. No psychological blocks tonight. The Cougs outplayed TCU in basically every facet of the game. Sure, TCU made it hard for BYU to run the ball, but BYU figured out how to get first downs time and time again. BYU looked really good tonight. And with TCU down one of the biggest obstacles to winning a MWC championship this year is out of the way. Well done BYU.

Rise and shout Cougar fans, what did you think?

“Jesus Camp” is a new documentary movie about the Evangelical youth movement.

I watched a brief clip from the movie this morning on Good Morning America that featured young children dancing around in camouflage clothes and face paint, yelling, “This means WAR!!”. Then, the pastor sternly told the children that if Harry Potter lived in Old Testament times he would certainly be “put to death!!!”  For being a “warlock”.  Would Muggles share a similar fate, I wonder? 

Another clip showed several children prostrating themselves in prayer at the feet of a cardboard cut-out of President George W. Bush.

My first thought, was “Wow. Not even EFY was this hard core”.  My second thought was for the children – how tragic for those sweet children to be manipulated and indoctrinated in this way. But then the pastor  (the one railing about Harry Potter) explained that the children were shedding tears of joy and happiness over their spiritual conversions and personal relationship with Jesus. She said that the experiences at “Jesus Camp” provide children with a moral foundation to resist the temptations (e.g., Harry Potter) of this wicked world.  I’m not sure what to say to that, other than the small clips of “Jesus Camp” I saw this morning definitely skirt (over) the child abuse line.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until “Jesus Camp” comes out on DVD to see just how bad it is, since “Jesus Camp” isn’t scheduled to come to Boston.

Well you probably all heard that the MWC in all its infinite wisdom schedule BYU’s game during a weekday afternoon so of course most of their fans can’t see it. I’m willing to excuse putting probably the deciding game of the conference with a byweek for TCU and a shortened week for BYU. Those things happen and I halfway wonder if General Conference being this weekend had something to do with the Thursday game. Yes BYU has had a pretty amazingly difficult schedule this year, all things considered. (All their tough opponents are away games plus this shortened week to play TCU) That doesn’t excuse anything of course. And if BYU loses (as many fear they might given how strong TCU is) then probably their season is really going to be rough. (But perhaps close to my 8-4 prediction)

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Via RNB, a Chicago Tribune article entitled “Polygamy (Utah’s open little secret)” (the original article is here).  The article includes many interesting quotes from individuals involved with polygamy as present or former practitioners.  The article comes off as being mildly critical of the practice, but at the same time it tries to be fairly neutral as to the various polygamous sects it lists and discusses.  And it sounds surprisingly sympathetic to the polygamous wives interviewed and quoted.

It strikes me that reporters don’t really know how to frame or “spin” polygamy anymore.  Big Love seems to have muddled the previously accepted immorality of polygamy for journalists – if Hollywood can have fun with a topic, can it really be morally wrong?  But in a world where half of America considers comedy shows to be real news, I guess it’s not surprising that some journalists take their moral cues from Hollywood.  Call it the media’s open little secret.  I was also struck by the fact that female voices, both for and against polygamy, predominate in these increasingly frequent polygamy articles.

The BYU football team did just what what it was expected to do today in Provo — crushed a hapless Utah State team 38-0. Here are a few observations I gathered from the radio broadcast and stats sheets (seeing a BYU game is very difficult this year after all…)

- Was it just me or did Jason Beck seem just as good as John Beck?
- The first half went quite well up until the end when the BYU offense couldn’t score a touchdown from FIRST AND GOAL AT THE 2 YARD LINE (good grief)
- The second half was mostly a fiasco for BYU on offense. The only bright spot was the 99 yard drive near the end of the game.
- Shutting out a team is pretty cool even if we are the third team in a row to do so against USU. The radio guys said BYU hadn’t pitched shutout in 80+ games. (Oh did I mention that the USU offense has not scored this year? Yeah they got a defensive touchdown in their opener to avoid a shutout in that one…) (more…)