Government prayer

In an essay for TCS Daily last week, Arnold Kling wrote, “With or without the words ‘under God,’ the Pledge of Allegiance feels to me like a prayer. It’s a fairly nice prayer, and I have no problem with having it taught in private schools. Continue Reading...

Profit of doom

In a follow up to The Goracle’s energy bill imbroglio, Bill Hobbs has this stunner today: As the controversy over global warming hypemaster Al Gore’s voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there’s an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. Continue Reading...

Advanced technology for eternal truth

Have you heard about Logos Bible Software? Here’s a bit about the founding of the company from the February NewsWire update (and on their blog here): “A couple of young Microsoft programmers with their entire careers of high-pay and lucrative Microsoft stock options ahead of them, dropped everything to join a partner and risk it all on pursuing their dream.” Continue Reading...

A Faustian bargain

As a follow-up to the rather wide-eyed optimism I expressed in a post almost a year ago, the city of Grand Rapids has rejected the sole bid application received for development of property on the Grand River. Continue Reading...

In defense of boring problems

Bjorn Lomborg has a better Powerpoint presentation than Al Gore. He’s also a more captivating speaker, and uses decent logic in his presentations. Is there any way we can get him an Oscar for the following 17 minute tour-de-force? Continue Reading...

U.S. high schools learning less

U.S. high school students are taking harder classes, receiving better grades, and from every indication in recent data, leaning much less than their counterparts fifteen years ago. Go figure. All the talk about spending more money and about improving testing and teacher standards and the end result is that two decades of educational reform may not have improved things overall. Continue Reading...

Trickle-down decadence

Anthony Esolen, from the March issue of Touchstone: The most bountiful alms that the rich can give the poor, apart from the personal donation of their time and means, are lives of virtue to emulate. Continue Reading...

Mugabe’s bread machine falling apart

This made me think of this. From the NYTimes: “Zimbabwe’s economy is so dire that bread vanished from store shelves across the country on Wednesday after bakeries shut down, saying government price controls were requiring them to sell loaves at a loss. Continue Reading...

Is Catholicism green?

Over at Planet Gore, I responded to Catholic layperson named Mary Colwell who seems to have her theological priorities out of whack: Colwell complains that the Catholics are not consistently green, and hopes things will improve. Continue Reading...