In an informative interview via Christianity Today’s Money&Faith.net, Dan Miller gives good guidance for people to become entrepreneurs. He’s a big proponent of the side business, which could take as little as 5 hours per week. He says,

Read more on ‘Wealth Isn’t Earned by the Hour’…

A Dove Foundation report released this week shows a link between family-friendly movies and profitability. "One comes away from the Dove report with a sense that the movie industry is beginning to recognize a profit opportunity in producing more morally robust movies," writes Rev. Robert A. Sirico.

Read more on The Culture’s Animating Values…

The AP passes along this story about the use of blogs by corporations and executives. Some of the good advice includes:

“Don’t go toward fake blogs. Don’t launch character blogs. Use a blog for what it’s for, transparency,” said Steve Rubel, vice president of client services at CooperKatz & Co., a New York PR firm.
…
He and other PR professionals can rattle off blogs gone wrong — usually “fake blogs” that stir up the ire of bloggers by hiding the fact that they are really ad campaigns, such as one McDonald’s posted in advance of a Super Bowl campaign about a Lincoln-shaped french fry.

Read more on Corporate Blogging…

In this month’s issue of Esquire, Ken Kurson extols the virtues of Sanofi-Aventis, the world’s third largest pharmaceutical company. “A Drugmaker reborn” (subscription required) essentially describes why Kurson thinks Sanofi is a great investment, but between his praises of the company sits this tidbit:

Read more on Surviving Socialism…

I read an interesting article by Dan Griswold today in Cato’s Letter, a quarterly publication of the Cato Institute where Griswold is Director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies. Griswold’s article, "Faith, Commerce, and Freedom," traces the history of the distrust that many Christians feel towards capitalism — and the resulting push for big government to regulate. Griswold points out that William Blake, a British Christian poet (1757–1827) wrote a poem titled "Jerusalem" which, in turn, was turned into a hymn that reflects quite well this hostile view of industry. This is the poem with the well-known line: "And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills." Griswold comments that what Blake describes as Satanic, a libertarian would view as progressive economy, providing jobs and opportunity, generating wealth, and producing a product useful to others.

Read more on Christian Hostility to Capitalism…

Reverend de Jong voting on the ratification of the proposed EU constitution.

With France voting NO for the ratification of the EU Constitution, a spotlight now follows the current voting on the same issue in the Netherlands. The world is expecting the Dutch to follow suit with the French, although not necessarily for all the same reasons.

Read more on Fear of the European Union…

Voters in France have rejected the EU constitution, with the Dutch expected to follow suit today. The arrogance and centralizing tendencies of the European political class may finally have hit a roadblock. “The clearest lesson of the failed referendum is that Europe’s governing elite has suffered a tremendous defeat, a symptom of its growing democratic deficit,” writes Kishore Jayabalan, director of Acton’s Rome office.

Read more on Europe’s Statist Nightmare — Beginning of the End?…

This Tech Central Station article, “Saving Africa,” puts some figures in perspective, citing the reason for the poverty of African nations: “Africa is poor because most countries in the region lack the fundamental elements of a capitalist system: property rights, free markets, free trade and the rule of law.”

Read more on Sources of African Poverty…

This Wired News article examines the European outrage at Google’s announced plans to digitize the holdings of all the world’s libraries.

“There is a growing awareness in continental Europe of the technology gap, even with some of the very good technologies they have had, of companies like Google, like Microsoft, like Apple … which are presented as almost technology imperialists at the forefront,” said Jonathan Fenby, a former Observer editor and author of France on the Brink. “There is this defensive reaction: ‘We have to defend what we’ve got. We mustn’t let the Americans and the British get into this.’”

The article goes on to share the lament the failed efforts of European national governments to invigorate the continental tech industry. For example,

Read more on Technology Imperialists at the Forefront…

Many may know that the season finale of The Apprentice was brodcast last night, with the conclusion being a victory for the “Book Smarts” team (college educated or higher) over the “Street Smarts” team (high school only).

Read more on Book Smarts vs. Street Smarts…