Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Public Policy

April 19, 2007

Lotteries and merit

One of my favorite industries to criticize is the state-run lottery business. Philosopher William F. Vallicella writes the following: “Your chances of a significant win are next-to-nil. But suppose you win, and suppose you manage to not have your life destroyed by your ‘good fortune.’ Continue Reading...
April 17, 2007

Sailing to Byzantium with Avatars

Socrates in some sense has come full circle. In a case of life imitating art, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Central Florida in Orlando have received a grant to create life-like virtual representations of historical figures, with whom students can interact, dialogue, and inquire (HT: Slashdot). Continue Reading...
April 16, 2007

The complexity of ‘green’ computing

As I alluded in a post last week, a number of EU governments are intent on making a switch from Windows to Linux operating systems. Part of the reason for this is the ostensibly cheaper cost of using open source software as opposed to proprietary systems. Continue Reading...
April 13, 2007

Open source, closed markets

John Berthoud of the National Taxpayers Union has a piece in today’s Washington Examiner about the battle between Microsoft and the European Commission. Berthoud writes that it is part of a larger “anti-American” program, and “another example of old-guard European protectionism.” Continue Reading...
April 13, 2007

The 100-mile suit

In the film The Pursuit of Happyness (review here), there’s a scene where Will Smith’s character arrives late for an interview with a stock brokerage firm and has no shirt on. Continue Reading...
April 10, 2007

Well, allow me to re-tort

Last month the Pacific Research Institute released a report estimating that costs associated with the American tort system exceed $865 billion per year (HT). Check it out for a detailed breakdown and comparison of these costs with other sectors of the economy and government spending. Continue Reading...
April 09, 2007

Is “Climate Change” really about the temperature?

Here’s an interesting piece from the April 16 issue of Newsweek by Richard Lindzen: Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Continue Reading...
April 09, 2007

Prophecy and the supremacy of consensus

German theologian and philosopher Michael Welker describes in his book God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994) the biblical relationship between the prophet and majority opinion: The prophet does not confuse truth with consensus. Continue Reading...
April 06, 2007

Faulty intelligence

Q: What do the Global War on Terror and the War on Terrifying Global Warming have in common? A: Neither proponents admit to a lack of complete consensus, to wit: . Continue Reading...