World Youth Day: Pope talks profits and people

On his flight to World Youth Day in Madrid this morning, Pope Benedict XVI responded to a question about the current economic crisis. Not sure what the question was, but the well-respected Italian Vatican analyst Andrea Tornielli captured the reply. Continue Reading...

Wringing Hands Over Dominionism

Michelle Goldberg has a column up at the aptly named Daily Beast letting us all know that we really need to worry about something called “Dominionism” which supposedly prevails among Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and folks who support their campaigns. Continue Reading...

TV Bias Book Not Ready for Primetime

My contribution to this week’s Acton News & Commentary: TV Bias Book Not Ready for Primetime By Bruce Edward Walker Reading Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV is similar to time traveling through the pages of a TV Guide. Continue Reading...

AP: International Aid Actually Worsens Somali Food Crisis

It’s terribly sad, but you just can’t make this stuff up: Thousands of sacks of food aid meant for Somalia’s famine victims have been stolen and are being sold at markets in the same neighborhoods where skeletal children in filthy refugee camps can’t find enough to eat, an Associated Press investigation has found. Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg: Taxing Warren Buffett

In “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich” investor Warren Buffett, one of the world’s wealthiest men, makes a case for upping the tax rate on the “mega-rich” in America. In a response published on National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg observes that “this is a broken record that Mr. Continue Reading...

British Leaders Talk Moral Collapse

British Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband both weighed in on a moral decline that was exposed during the recent riots in Britain. An AP article titled “Cameron: Riot hit-UK must reverse ‘moral collapse'” covers their contrasting diagnosis and solutions: Britain must confront a culture of laziness, irresponsibility and selfishness that fueled four days of riots which left five people dead, thousands facing criminal charges and hundreds of millions in damages, Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged Monday . Continue Reading...

Genetic Patents: Moral Concerns

Last week the Federal Circuit Court handed down what seemed to many a funny decision: that human genes are patentable. Myriad Genetics owns patents for two tumor suppressor genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2 (mutations of these genes are correlated with increased incidence of breast cancer, making them of great interest to doctors and scientists). Continue Reading...

Where’s the Leadership?

Rumors are flying about a possible hearing involving Standard & Poor’s. It is believed the Senate Banking Committee is gathering information on the credit rating agency. Disgruntled over the loss of the government’s AAA rating, the rumored investigation is believed to be sparked by Treasury Department officials claiming that S&P’s judgment was affected by an error that overstated national debt projections by $2 trillion. Continue Reading...