In his essay, “Intellectuals and Socialism,” Friedrich Hayek asked how it was possible for a small group of people to have such influence on the ideas and politics that affected millions. He argued that it was because the socialists influenced the “influencers”–those “secondhand dealers in ideas” like the press, educators, and editors, who spread socialist thought into the mainstream. A parallel can be seen in the cultural battles over religious symbols during the Christmas … I mean, the holiday season....

The Acton Institute es a new writer to mentariat today with this piece on Climategate. The Rev. Gregory Jensen is a psychologist of religion and a priest of the Diocese of Chicago and the Midwest (Orthodox Church in America). He blogs at Koinonia. —– Science and the Demands of Virtue By Rev. Gregory Jensen Contrary to the popular understanding, the natural sciences are not morally neutral. Not only do the findings of science have moral implications, the actual work of...

Breaking news: India, China walk out of climate summit So much for the “God moment.” Seeing as how this was our last chance and all, I think I’m going to take the afternoon off to go get my affairs in order. Mind Boggling: How could world leaders e to a consensus when Chin-Strap the Polar Bear and the Guardian Angels of the Climate were all in agreement? Unity in diversity! It was so spiritual! The mind reels. CONSENSUS! No, seriously,...

Via Beliefnet, Rev. Richard Cizik, formerly of the National Association of Evangelicals, who once called global warming the “third rail” of evangelical politics, and who also said that evangelicals “need to confront population control,” is at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. In this video, Cizik speaks of the critical role that “people of faith” have in translating the challenge of climate change into concrete political action. He says in part, “I don’t believe this moment in time is not without...

The question: Is this Copenhagen global warming conference an environmental pilgrimage for some? Says one demonstrator: “You can call it, like, some kind of a new religion, I don’t know … ” But the guy in the polar bear costume isn’t so sure. ...

Those three words Just Sign Here are what you’re told when you sign up for a cellphone, or buy a car or take out a bank loan. And it’s what you’re told to do when you buy a house whether or not there’s a mortgage. Just the buying part involves many disclosures about the nature of the property and pages of stuff to read and acknowledge. Over the years I’ve heard more than one escrow officer admit, “if you read...

Update: Naturally, right after I post this article, new es out that makes Climategate look even worse. It’s been noted in ments that Russian scientists are now saying outright that climate data from Russian weather stations has been tampered with in order to make it appear to substantiate claims of catastrophic man-made global warming: On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the...

If ever G.K. Chesterton’s old quip about heresy being “truth gone mad” was in full view, es a report from England whereby Fr. Tim Jones, an Anglican minister, had actually encouraged the poor to shoplift from large chains this holiday season. … the minister’s controversial sermon at St. Lawrence Church in York has been slammed by police, the British Retail Consortium and a local MP, who all say that no matter what the circumstances, shoplifting is an offence. Delivering his...

I saw the latest blockbuster Avatar last night, and the early plaudits are true: this is a visually stunning masterpiece of “hybrid” cinematography, a “full live-action shoot bination puter-generated characters and live environments.” But there are other, pelling ways, in which Avatar is a hybrid of sorts. There are literal hybrids in the Avatars themselves, the genetically-altered bining both elements of Na’vi and human genes to act as bodies for the Avatar “sleep walkers.” mentators have noted the lack of...

My mentary this week looks at As We Forgive, a moving documentary about reconciliation and forgiveness in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. As I reflected on forgiveness in my own life, my thoughts fell on a dear friend who died very young and my feelings towards the man who took his life. The mentary follows: Two and a half years ago I lost my good friend, Tim. He had just reenlisted for his second term in the Army after...