Acton Institute Powerblog

Promoting free societies characterized by liberty & religious principles

Search results for "index.html"
September 18, 2006

Cracking Down on Church Contributions

A week or so ago I passed along a story about the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York’s interpretation of recent legislation to make it illegal for those filing for bankruptcy to tithe, except under very specific circumstances (here’s a good follow-up story). Continue Reading...
September 15, 2006

Pascal and Climate Change

In today’s Times of London, taking a cue from Blaise Pascal (at least he thinks), Gerard Baker argues, “Unless the sceptics are really, really certain that we’re all going to be OK, we must act now.” Continue Reading...
September 13, 2006

Death and Despair, Life and Hope

Two pieces on Christianity Today’s website this week are worthy of comment. The first, “Despair Not,” reminds us that “there is something worse than misery and death.” The author Stephen L. Continue Reading...
September 12, 2006

‘Green’ Offices are Economical

From the same issue of Business 2.0 magazine I cited yesterday, check out this article on Adobe Systems, which is touted as having “The greenest office in America.” It just goes to show you that economic efficiency and environmental concerns go hand in hand. Continue Reading...
September 07, 2006

Ex Ante vs. Ex Post Government Action

I haven’t started Marvin Olasky’s new book yet, but here’s a bit from the abstract of a new NBER paper, “Rules Rather Than Discretion: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina,” by Howard Kunreuther and Mark Pauly. Continue Reading...
August 31, 2006

Wealth, Envy, and Happiness

In the modern classic Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, played by Kurt Russell, asks Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday why the sinister Johnny Ringo is so evil: “What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? Continue Reading...
August 30, 2006

Just a Thought on Iran and Thorium

Passed on to me by a friend about a post last week: If a thorium reactor, among other things “created no weapons-grade by-products,” and Iran wants nuclear reactors simply “to establish a complete nuclear fuel cycle to support a civilian energy program,” as it claims, perhaps we could set it up so that potentially dangerous regimes like Iran can use thorium and not uranium based nuclear reactors. Continue Reading...
August 30, 2006

Disaster Video Gaming

Today’s WaPo has a story about Incident Commander, “a training simulator that gives players a lead role in managing crisis situations such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters.” In “A Computer Game for Real-Life Crises: Disaster Simulator’s Maker Gives It to Municipal Emergency Departments,” Mike Musgrove writes about the video game software, which was used by an Illinois paradmedic just days before he was called into duty following Hurricane Katrina. Continue Reading...