Nicholas Wapshott’s new book Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage offers a fresh look at the political relationship and friendship of two profound leaders in the late 20th Century. While the biographical information is not new for those who have read extensive biographies of Reagan and Thatcher, the author examines some of the deep disagreements the two leaders had in foreign policy. While there were arguments between the two over the Falklands War, Grenada, sanctions, and nuclear disarmament, and were often heated, the rifts healed quickly.

Read more on Review: Reagan & Thatcher…

Found a study on sociobiology in The Economist (of all places).

This passage on the development of liberal vice conservative tendencies was worth a chuckle:

Dr Wilson and Dr Storm found several unexpected differences between the groups. Liberal teenagers always felt more stress than conservatives, but were particularly stressed if they could not decide for themselves whom they spent time with. Such choice, or the lack of it, did not change conservative stress levels. Liberals were also loners, spending a quarter of their time on their own. Conservatives were alone for a sixth of the time. That may have been related to the fact that liberals were equally bored by their own company and that of others. Conservatives were far less bored when with other people. They also preferred the company of relatives to non-relatives. Liberals were indifferent. Perhaps most intriguingly, the more religious a liberal teenager claimed to be, the more he was willing to confront his parents with dissenting beliefs. The opposite was true for conservatives.

Read more on Hug your favorite liberal today…

There’s a lot of consternation, much of it justified, about the news that now 1% of the population of the United States is incarcerated. Especially noteworthy is a comparison of the rate of imprisonment with institutionalization in mental health facilities over the last century.

Read more on Imprisonment and Government Expenditures…

From a CT interview in 1995 by Michael Cromartie:

Certain things which the market authorizes simply in terms of law are unchristian and ought not to be done. The big issue today has to do with the fidelity of marriages. The tendency now to leave your wife because you have an infatuation with a younger woman of tenderer flesh is an enormous temptation. It’s carnal, and it’s also easy to justify with all the solipsistic reasoning that we hear today. That is about the gravest offense that a human being can commit, to throw away a wife.

From this it doesn’t follow that the state should make the law tougher, but rather that the culture needs to be reformed. Modifying the law is only one way, and often not the best, to do that: “…unless we create a virtuous society, it’s not a society that’s going to endure. So the right things should be encouraged and the wrong things discouraged. Today, roughly speaking, there is zero taboo against fornication.”

Read more on Buckley on Law and Christian Morality…

Following up on our discussion of the Pew survey on the American religious landscape, I have a few thoughts as to what plagues American Protestantism, particularly of the evangelical variety, and it has to do precisely with the “catholicity” of Protestantism.

Read more on Some Problems with Protestantism…

Buckley & Sirico – Acton’s 2nd Annual Dinner – May 12, 1992

Rev. Robert Sirico reflects on the life of William F. Buckley, Jr., who died in his study on Wednesday, praising him as a friend, a literary genius, and a supporter of the Acton Institute. Sirico writes, “He will be lauded by numerous pendants and scribes for the incredible number of his accomplishments, preeminent of which is his historic role as godfather of the modern conservative/libertarian movement in the founding of the National Review.”

Read more on WFB: In Memoriam…

On this week’s edition of Radio Free Acton, Rev. Robert A. Sirico pays tribute to the late William F. Buckley, the RFA regulars are joined by Professor Joseph Knippenberg from Oglethorp University in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss the Pew Forum’s newly released research on the American religious landscape, and we listen in to some bonus audio from Dr. Glenn Sunshine’s Acton Lecture Series address, Wealth, Work and the Church. You can listen at this link.

Read more on Radio Free Acton – Remembering Buckley and Contemplating Religious Consumerism…

Good news is not always so hard to find. Case in point: Free-market economics is making a comeback at the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

Previously known as a dry read, L’Osservatore Romano (which means The Roman Observer in English) now contains provocative interviews and real news stories from around the world. This is attributable to the paper’s new editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, who was appointed to the post by Pope Benedict last October (see here for the interesting background on the change by the Italian journalist Sandro Magister.)

Read more on Solid Economics at L’Osservatore Romano…

UMAction, the Methodist wing of IRD that supports traditional and historic Methodism is encouraging women in the United Methodist and Wesleyan tradition in ministry to consider attending the “Come to the Water” conference in Nashville from April 10-13. John Lomperis of IRD appropriately notes, “Many evangelical clergywomen in the United Methodist Church feel sidelined or excluded in some of the denomination’s official clergy women’s networks because of a dominance of intolerant theological liberalism.”

Read more on Conference for Clergywomen in Wesleyan Tradition…

Buckley & Sirico – Acton’s 2nd Annual Dinner – May 12, 1992

One of many remembrances at National Review Online:

Bill died doing what he loved doing — he never left this movement he built, never left NR, he never stopped writing, never left home, never left thinking. And he’s as much a part of us today and forever as he was all these years. He’s left a remarkable legacy.

Read more on William F. Buckley – 1925-2008…