Today’s Detroit News ran a brief letter to the editor in response to my Jan. 23 op-ed, “Don’t prevent religion from helping to reform prisoners.” (Joe Knippenberg engaged a previous response on his blog here).

Read more on Response to DN Letter…

Mr. Fred L. Smith, Jr. of the Competitive Enterprise Institute was today’s guest speaker as part of the 2007 Acton Lecture Series here in Grand Rapids, speaking on the topic of The Irresponsibility of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Read more on 2007 Acton Lecture Series: The Irresponsibility of Corporate Social Responsibility…

One of the stories told in the Acton’s forthcoming documentary, “The Call of the Entrepreneur,” (trailer available here) is that of Brad Morgan, a Michigan dairy farmer, who bucked the odds and the naysayers and turned the problem posed by the disposal of his herd’s manure into a profitable business venture.

Read more on Managing Manure…

In this week’s Acton Commentary, I examine the most recent buzz-worthy trend in the lottery industry: privatization.

While most critics of these moves have pointed to the foolhardiness of selling off a long-term income stream for a lump sum jackpot, I argue that privatization by itself does nothing to address the underlying problems afflicting the lottery business. I conclude, “A government-run monopoly would merely be replaced by a government-enforced monopoly.”

Read more on A Lottery Sell-Off is a Sell-Out…

PARADE Magazine has published its annual list of “The World’s Worst Dictators.” Topping the list is the man overseeing the genocide in Darfur, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir.

At least three of the top twenty are important friends and allies of the United States in the war on terror: #5 King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia; #9 Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya; #15 Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan.

“See, Lois? I told you we had allies. Slobodan, you made it!”

David Wallechinsky, PARADE contributing editor and author of Tyrants: The World’s 20 Worst Living Dictators, compiled the list. PARADE has come out with an annual list since 2003.

Read more on Friends in Low Places…

Over the weekend the Grand Rapids Press published an article by Mary Radigan that examines one booming trend in the travel industry, “Spiritual journeys take off in travel industry.”

“The market for religious travel has grown into an $18 billion industry worldwide,” writes Radigan. “In the past decade, it has expanded into cruise lines, bus trips, escorted tours, and conventions and meetings.”

Read more on The Business and Politics of Spiritual Journeys…

Dr. Andrea Schneider, recently appointed as an advisor to the office of Germany’s Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is the winner of the 2007 Novak Award and its associated $10,000 prize.

Dr. Schneider studied economics at the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, where she taught and worked for the Chair for Economic Policy in Nuremberg, Germany. Her dissertation received both the Hermann-Gutmann-Foundation Award and the Wolfgang-Ritter-Award. She went on to work as director of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation’s economic policy group.

Read more on Emerging German Economist to receive 2007 Novak Award…

I’VE BEEN BLESSED over the past 18 months to review three very different books on Christian ecology by three guys I would recommend without hesitation as examples for our generation.

- Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth’s "Serve God, Save the Planet" starts with Matt’s trading in his family’s king-size house for the King’s priorities. As he puts it, their new house was "about the same size as their former garage." It’s a great read on how individual Christians and their families can respond to God’s call for environmental stewardship.

Read more on Book Review: Our Father’s Word – Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation…

Well, it’s happened. Ellen Goodman, writing last week in the Boston Globe, effectively ended the debate over climate change by invoking the most dreaded comparison of all:

I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

All-righty, then. One reasonable question: do those of us who are skeptical of the climate-change consensus now have the ability to claim ultimate victory in the debate by invoking Godwin’s Law? I leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide.

Read more on I’m So Ashamed…

Travis Sinquefield at Disorganizational Behavior examines this Washington Post article on new parts of an annual survey given to government workers.

Among the new statements the employees were asked to evaluate was this: “Pay raises depend on how well employees perform their jobs.” Only 22 percent of the respondents agreed with this statement, while 45 percent disagreed (25 percent were neutral).

Read more on Government Pay and Performance…