Dr. Michel Casey – Clicking this link will open a new window with a video player.

Dr. Michael Casey was in Grand Rapids today to deliver the first address of the 2007 Acton Lecture Series, which was entitled The Religion of Politics. Dr. Casey is a Permanent Fellow at the John Paul II Institute, Melbourne, Australia, and Private Secretary to Cardinal George Pell, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. He is currently serving as a Visiting Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and was also awarded the 2002 Novak Award by the Acton Institute for his contributions to thinking that concerns the relationship between religion and economic liberty.

Read more on 2007 Acton Lecture Series: The Religion of Politics…

On last week’s Huffington Post blog, Dr. Julianne Malveaux decries the practices of milk “charlatans,” who she claims, “combine the concern about pesticides and additives with their own desire to grab hold of the profits available to those who can distinguish the food they produce from ‘ordinary’ food.”

Read more on Malveaux Claims Milk Malfeasance…

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…