Tension between China and Taiwan is one of the more troubling matters in geopolitical affairs. Now AsiaNews reports that trade between China and Taiwas increased by 15 percent in the first half of 2006. It’s been said that “where goods cross borders, armies don’t,” a reference to the fact that historically nations mercial ties rarely go to war against each other. Without reading too much into one trade report, it may be a hopeful sign for the prospects of peace...

This is a blog, so I can say “goofy.” There are some other erudite and plex terms, but “goofy” pretty much sums up political norms at the moment. What are we thinking. Or, rather, are we thinking? The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life just released a report titled, “Many Americans Uneasy with Mix of Religion and Politics.” Not to slight Pew’s substantive work and fully defensible conclusions,...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, Jennifer Roback Morse wonders why no one is talking about the Forbidden Topic in the Social Security debate. That taboo subject is the declining birth rate. Jennifer Roback Morse writes that “the collapse in the fertility levels, particularly striking among the most educated women in society, is a contributing factor to the insolvency of our entitlement programs.” Read the mentary here. ...

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. According to Musgrove, “Yesterday, on the first anniversary of Hurricane...

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 plete 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. As Tim Dean highlights the possibility in the Cosmos article: “Imagine the West offering...

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? What makes him do the things he does?” Doc’s memorable answer is, “A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of himself. And he can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.” This echoes, I think,...

Rick Ritchie has a thought-provoking post over at Old Solar, deconstructing a rather shrill WorldNetDaily article. In a piece titled, “What!? Caesar’s Money Has Strings Attached?,” Ritchie soberly observes, “When you do accept state funding, the state does have an interest in how its money is used.” The WND piece and Ritchie’s post refer to this bit of California legislation, signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which requires any educational institution that receives government support in any form, including...

Tort reform has been on the political agenda for some time. Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok make a unique contribution to the debate in their new monograph, Judge and Jury: American Tort Law on Trial (Independent Institute). The first lines are clever: Recently each of us has successfully sued more than a half dozen large corporations. No, we are not outrageously rich plaintiffs’ lawyers or the attorney general of New York. In fact, neither of us even knew that we...

Charles Colson, recipient of the 2006 Faith & Freedom Award In case you haven’t heard, mark your calendars and save the date for the Acton Institute’s Annual Dinner on October 26, 2006 in Grand Rapids. You can register to attend online here. Charles W. Colson will deliver remarks on the topic, “War of the Worlds,” describing the great clash of civilizations between Christianity with Islam on the one hand and with secular naturalism on the other. Mr. Colson is also...

Check out Jeff Cornwall contra “entrepreneurial welfare” over at The Entrepreneurial Mind. ...

Almighty God our heavenly Father, you declare your glory and show forth your handiwork in the heavens and in the earth: Deliver us in our various occupations from the service of self alone, that we may do the work you give us to do in truth and beauty and for mon good; for the sake of him who came among us as one who serves, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy...

Acton in the News Over recent days a number of Acton staff have authored op-eds in various print outlets. Here’s a rundown: Associate editor David Michael Phelps wrote a piece that appeared in today’s edition of the Rhode Island-based Providence Journal, “Miracles of God and miracles of science” (PDF).Marvin Olasky, an Acton senior fellow, wrote this piece on disaster preparation in yesterday’s Quad-City Times, “Advance planning curtails disaster.”Last week the San Francisco Examiner carried my piece on minimum wage legislation,...