I mentioned South Korea in a commentary on population a few months ago. New data show that the erstwhile East Asian tiger is now the world’s leader in population contraction. Its fertility rate is 1.08, less than half the replacement rate of 2.1. In other words, if that rate persists, South Korea will halve its population with each generation.

Read more on No Babies in Korea…

Where have I seen that salute before?

A new possible episode for my proposed sitcom: Chavez continues his power grasp in Latin America.

My favorite quote:

“We are in an existential moment of Venezuelan life … We’re heading toward socialism, and nothing and no-one can prevent it.”

Read more on Red Rising: High Marx for Venezuela…

On the same theme as a couple of recent posts (on the inanity of warning labels and signature file disclosure messages), Fast Company links to what they are calling the “Egregiously Legalistic Sig File of the Month.”

Read more on Speaking of Lawsuits……

Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, started a contest to find the wackiest warning labels on consumer products ten years ago, and they’ve just released this year’s list of winners (HT: Slashdot).

Read more on ‘DO NOT put any person in this washer’…

A NYT editorial informs us today that retail prices for coffee products are rising (HT: Icarus Fallen). We are assured, however, that the price rise has been “relatively modest” and that an important factor is “changes in supply and demand in a global economy.”

Read more on Economic Lessons in Your Morning Mug…

Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in California, has a new blog, Mouw’s Musings, and has taken notice of Sam Gregg’s recent Acton Commentary, “Self Interest, Rightly Understood.”

Giving Gregg credit for making “an important point” with which he largely agrees, Mouw goes on to say: “At the same time this also seems to me to be true. People who are not motivated by an intentional desire to promote the common good often do not in fact promote the common good. And people who do aim to promote the common good often do succeed in doing so.”

Read more on Mouw’s Musings…

It has been said that when Jonathan Edwards would roam about the countryside on his horse, he would record his observations and thoughts on little scraps of paper and pin them to his coat. When he returned home, his wife would help him unpin the notes and he would arrange them on his desk and use them as a basis for recording his thoughts in more permanent form.

Read more on Jonathan Edwards, Original Blogger…

Order Dr. Gregg’s new book today!

With the publication this month of The Commercial Society – Foundations and Challenges in a Global Age, Samuel Gregg embarks on an exploration of the key foundational elements that must exist within a society for commercial order to take root and flourish. Guided by the thoughts of Alexis de Tocqueville, Gregg studies the challenges that have consistently impeded and occasionally undermined commercial order. This commentary, excerpted from the new book, explains why people who begin to exceed their “immediate needs and acquired responsibilities … begin to develop opportunities to be generous to others.”

Read more on Self Interest, Rightly Understood…

I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. — Eze 31:16

Read more on The Desert Blooms – Environmental Restoration in Post-Saddam Iraq…

One of the oft-overlooked groups in the Iraq conflict are Iraqi Christians (many of whom are Chaldean Christians). Chances are if you hear about an Iraqi ethnic or religious minority, they are either Kurds or Sunni Muslims.

Read more on Whither the Refugees?…