If you haven’t seen it yet, NRO is hosting a special blog worth taking a look at: CrunchyCon. The discussion is on the thesis of Rod Dreher’s new book, Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party).

Read more on The ‘Crunchy’ Con-versation…

In the latest issue of Science & Spirit magazine, Acton director of research Samuel Gregg is interviewed about the ethical aspects of the genetic engineering of food. In “God and the New Foodstuffs,” author Trey Popp writes about the opposition to such endeavors:

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An interesting piece in Tuesday’s Financial Times (registration req.) by Jagdish Bhagwati, economist at Columbia University. In the form of a letter to U2 front man Bono, Dr. Bhagwati offers a (I think) stinging criticism of attempts to save Africa through appeals for more governmental spending. (This is especially interesting since Bono plays off the songsheet of another Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs.) If you can find a copy of the article, I highly recommend it, but in the meantime, here is a sample:

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I was waiting for the shuttle this morning when it struck me–an idea, I mean, not the shuttle. We talk a lot here at the Acton Institute about how economics needs morality and morality needs economics; or, as Fr. Sirico phrased it in his NRO salute to Ed Opitz, “Christianity qua Christianity [offers] no specific economic model any more than economics qua economics has any specific moral model to proffer—which is precisely why they both need each other.” I’ve thought of a powerful illustration of this idea–though I am sure I’m not the first to make the connection–and it has been sitting unassumingly on my bookshelf at home, an essay in almost every freshman literature textbook: Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. This work offers a very efficient, well-planned, and minutely-detailed cure for the hunger of the Irish: let them eat their young. And as I am sure most of our readers know well this work as a prime example of the power of satire, I think it also a great (and gruesome) primer to the idea of economics without the guiding hand of morality. Just a thought. Off to lunch.

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Yesterday I recommended Professor Plum’s EducatioNation, and I’ll do so again today.

Here’s a tidbit from a recent post titled “We Need More Unions” on Prof. Plum’s blog: “Once again, America’s teachers unions reveal that all their blather about being child centered, about being stewards of America’s children, and about social justice and diversity, is nothing but a disguise for their real interest—which is self-preservation via monopolistic control of the means of education.”

Read more on He Said It…

Washington lawmakers are falling all over themselves to pass legislation aimed at curbing corruption in high places. But, as Kevin Schmiesing points out, the most effective solution to the problem has been known for hundreds of years: limited government and moral restraint.

Read more on Ancient Wisdom for an Old Problem…

“The First Amendment does not cover burping.” (from episode 2F22)

One of my favorite websites to check out on occasion is Professor Plum’s EducatioNation, and the first quote on the homepage is this from Thomas Jefferson: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” [Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816]

Read more on The Right to be Ignorant…