“ICANN Reviews Revoking Outdated Suffixes” (HT: Slashdot). From the piece, “The Soviet Union’s ‘.su’ is the leading candidate for deletion.” A Google search turns up about 3 million sites with the .su suffix. How exactly did the Soviet Union get a domain suffix? The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and wasn’t yet mercialized. But it seems that the administrative record for the .su suffix was created just in time, on September 19, 1990, a little over a year before the...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, I review Will Smith’s latest movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, which stands as an extended argument underscoring the truth of conservative values. This may sound like an improbable anomaly given the traditional political, ethical, and social allegiances of Hollywood, but the power of the story lies in its basis in fact, the real-life story of Christopher Gardner. This in turn prevents it from being appropriated as a tool for liberal political ideology. The movie’s depicts...

Let’s engage in a little thought experiment. How would you feel about the following scenario? 1) The government bans all activities associated with Industry X because it judges that this industry damages mon good. Industry X is under government prohibition. 2) After enough time has passed and a new generation of bureaucrats has arisen, one of them has the idea of resurrecting Industry X because it has the potential to create new streams of revenue for the government. 3) The...

Received an announcement today about this event to be held later this week, “Faith and International Development Conference,” at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., from February 1-3. Check out the list of sponsors at the bottom of the page, including: Bread for the WorldMicah ChallengeOffice of Social Justice and Hunger Action Just a hunch, but I wouldn’t expect a lot of market-friendly perspectives to be included. ...

This is, as millions already know, Super Bowl week. Nothing is hyped all across America quite like the Super Bowl. This game has reached amazing proportions when es to the viewing audience and mercialization. It is a stunning piece of popular culture and one doesn’t know whether to weep about it or celebrate. Some pietistic folk see this as clear evidence that there is little real difference between us and the ancient Romans in the Coliseum. Others think this is...

Kim Strasell in OpinionJournal today: CEOs are quick learners, and even those who would get smacked by a carbon cap are now devising ways to make warming work to their political advantage. The “most creative” prize goes to steel giant Nucor. Steven Rowlan, pany’s environmental director, doesn’t want carbon caps in the U.S.–oh, no. The smarter answer, he explains, would be for the U.S. to impose trade restrictions on foreign firms that aren’t environmentally clean. Global warming as foil for...

This might just be the best argument for increasing the minimum wage that I’ve heard yet: It’s just not fair that Michelle needs to go deep in hock to “feed her Ninja Turtle obsession,” is it? Well, maybe such an “obsession” leads to making poor economic decisions, but to each her own I guess. How sad. In related news, the newest TNMT movie is set for release on March 23, 2007. ...

The business of philanthropy education, teaching people how to give their money away, is a growth industry, according to Business Week (HT: The Wealth Report). It seems that wealthy kids often have trouble realizing and meeting their moral duties to be good stewards of their inheritance. “With my inheritance, I felt a sense of guilt and responsibility,” says Jos Thalheimer, 24, whose great-grandfather founded the American Oil Co. (Amoco) in 1910. John Stossel’s recent “Cheap in America” program examined this...

The newest edition of the Journal of Markets & Morality is now available online and in print. You can pick up a single copy of the print version at the Acton Bookshoppe, or you can subscribe to the Journal. This issue of the Journal features a new scholia. “Selections from the Dicaeologicae” is an original English translation of several key chapters of Johannes Althusius’ Dicaeologicae, the ground-breaking seventeenth-century work that systematized current civil law, Roman law, and Jewish law into...

Several months ago I was invited to serve on the board of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). Frankly, I was stunned by this invitation. I will attend my first meeting in Washington, DC, in a few months. IRD’s purpose statement says that it is: (1) An ecumenical alliance of U. S. Christians, (2) working to reform their churches’ social witness, in accord with biblical and historic Christian teachings, (3) thereby contributing to the renewal of democratic society at...