As a follow-up to the rather wide-eyed optimism I expressed in a post almost a year ago, the city of Grand Rapids has rejected the sole bid application received for development of property on the Grand River. Duane Faust’s group did submit materials by the deadline, but the application lacked $65,000 in fees. reports that there were two other developers in the running, but “Faust’s bid was the only offer e into the city offices on Friday, but without $65,000...

In a follow up to The Goracle’s energy bill imbroglio, Bill Hobbs has this stunner today: As the controversy over global warming hypemaster Al Gore’s voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there’s an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. In its original story, The Tennessean reported that Gore buys “carbon offsets” pensate for his home’s use of energy from carbon-based fuels. As Wikipedia explains, a carbon offset “is a service that tries to reduce the net...

Rarely have I seen a movie that moved me the way Amazing Grace did last evening. The new film, which opened across America on Friday, is the story of the life-long struggle of William Wilberforce to end slavery and reform British society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The movie pel Christians to understand how culture can be truly altered by incrementalism, deep faith, sheer perseverance, and quite often with great personal sacrifice. When the anti-slavery movement began...

Have you heard about Logos Bible Software? Here’s a bit about the founding of pany from the February NewsWire update (and on their blog here): “A couple of young Microsoft programmers with their entire careers of high-pay and lucrative Microsoft stock options ahead of them, dropped everything to join a partner and risk it all on pursuing their dream.” The story continues: “They weren’t satisfied with using their skills to help businessmen have access to the latest and greatest in...

This piece from the Scientific American examines the difficulty that human beings have achieving happiness even in a world characterized by material prosperity. “Once average annual e is above $20,000 a head, higher pay brings no greater happiness,” writes Michael Shermer, in the context of Richard Lay૚rd’s observation that “we are no happier even though average es have more than doubled since 1950.” Shermer examines various reasons that increases in objective well-being don’t necessarily correspond to increases in subjective well-being,...

Good news (at least I think it is). Acton.org is a site not blocked by the “Great Firewall of China” (i.e. government censors). A big HT to GetReligion (which is blocked). ...

In an essay for TCS Daily last week, Arnold Kling wrote, “With or without the words ‘under God,’ the Pledge of Allegiance feels to me like a prayer. It’s a fairly nice prayer, and I have no problem with having it taught in private schools. I have no problem praying for my country — such a prayer is included in the standard weekly service at my synagogue. But government institutions ought not to be telling people how to pray.” The...

Bjorn Lomborg has a better Powerpoint presentation than Al Gore. He’s also a more captivating speaker, and uses decent logic in his presentations. Is there any way we can get him an Oscar for the following 17 minute tour-de-force? Via Planet Gore, where a bunch of contemptible low-lifes hang out and engage in that filthy practice on a par with Holocaust denial – Climate Change Skepticism. I shudder just thinking about it. Oh, and Jay Richards blogs there too, the...

Behold the rise of the perfect coalition: the climate change brigades and the Roswell True Believers! A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday. “I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation … that could be a way to save our planet,” Paul Hellyer, 83,...

The John A. Ryan Institute at the University of St. Thomas has been organizing a series of international conferences on Catholic Social Thought and Management Education. The latest was on the topic “The Good Company: Catholic Social Thought and Corporate Social Responsibility in Dialogue.” You can access a number of the papers through this site. These conferences are usually a mixed bag, so investigate at your own risk. But there are always a few outstanding presentations and this edition is...