From : “Socially responsible investing is when you take your beliefs and values and apply them to how you invest your money. This is also known as having a ‘double bottom line,’ because not only are you looking for a profitable investment, but also one that meets certain moral criteria and that lets you sleep well at night. Your second bottom line could be moral, religious, or based on whatever Chicken Soup for the Soul principles help guide you through...

Crude oil prices have reach a record high $62 per barrel. Combined with Time Warner’s worse-than-expected recent earnings stocks dropped today as investors waited uneasily for the government’s latest petroleum inventory report. A barrel of light crude was quoted at $62.40, up 51 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gasoline rose more than a cent to $1.7945 a gallon while heating oil gained a cent to $1.7350 a gallon. As American refineries operate at nearly 100% capacity, prices at...

In light of the recent exodus from the AFL-CIO, Dr. Charles W. Baird examines the nature of labor unions through the lens of Catholic social teaching. “Catholic social teaching has supported labor unions as part of a general defense of freedom of association,” he writes. “This defense has not extended, however, to unions that are coercive or politically partisan.” Read the full text here. Dr. Charles W. Baird is professor of economics at California State University, East Bay and author...

Radical islamist terrorists have struck at the heart of New York City, Washington, London and Madrid (among other places). Could the Vatican be next? Kishore Jayabalan, director of Acton’s Rome office, appeared on Fox News yesterday as part of a report asking that question. You can view the report below (.mov). Kishore Jayalaban: “Al Qaeda has said… that the Vatican is a target” ...

CBS News reports that “while a majority still thinks the Space Shuttle is worth continuing, the program receives its lowest level of support in this poll since CBS News started asking about it in 1986. In addition, the public gives the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) its lowest job rating to date.” This is an interesting bit of news, but the general unreliability of polls is exacerbated in this case, since “this poll was conducted before the repair of...

The abstract from an article in the latest issue of Dutch Crossing: A Journal of Low Countries, Volume 28, numbers 1/2 (Summer/Winter 2004), published by the Association for Low Countries Studies in Great Britain and Ireland: Edward Dutton, “Tolerant Evangelism. A Student Evangelical Group in a ‘Tolerant’ Culture,” p. 67 This paper examines the nature of evangelism amongst an evangelical group at a Dutch university pares it to a similar group at a British university. In assessing the differences the...

If this isn’t a great example of power corrupting, I don’t know what is: see this Reuters report on an ium to leader Kim Jong-Il on a North Korean website. Among Kim’s remarkable talents is his plishment of a “feat unmatched in the annals of professional golf by shooting 11 holes-in-one on the first round he ever played.” Update: He did it with one arm tied behind his back and blindfolded, while chewing gum. What a guy! HT: The Reform...

Check out this Seattle Weekly article, detailing the experience of Armen Yousoufian, who sought public disclosure of records in 1997 relating to “the proposed new Seahawks stadium, now called Qwest Field, which was built largely with public money.” When faced with government foot-dragging in release of the records, “Instead of giving up, Yousoufian was energized by the rejections. ‘They picked on the wrong Armenian!’ he liked to say.” John Stossel exposes government welfare for billionaires in the form of public...

In a column in today’s Washington Times, Arnaud de Borchgrave looks at the growing gap between pensation and the pay of just about everyone else. He quotes a Wall Street Journal study showing that in 2004 the median salary and bonus for CEOs soared 14.5 percent, while paychecks for salaried employees averaged a 3.4 percent increase. Among those who view this situation with alarm are Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and Christopher Cox, the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange...

Acton senior fellow Marvin Olasky writes about two examples of churches placing the needs of Christians and evangelism in the developing world above their own forts. In the first piece, Olasky discusses Mount Zion United Methodist Church just outside of Baltimore. While mid-Atlantic heat can be oppressive, it’s pared that of the everlasting lake of fire. With this priority of the eternal over the temporal in mind, the congregation decided “the sanctuary would get air conditioning only after the congregation...

This review in the latest issue of Books & Culture by John Copeland Nagle, associate dean for Faculty Research and professor at the Notre Dame Law School, reflects on a book on the environmental history of China, by Mark Elvin. Nagle begins the piece with a brief personal anecdote of his experience with environmental problems in China: On the morning of March 20, 2002, I left my windowless office in the Tsinghua University Law School for a short break. Then...

In the weeks that have passed since the announcement of the nomination of John Roberts to serve as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, an old debate has moved into the forefront once again: can a person with deeply held religious beliefs (in Judge Roberts’ case, a devout Catholic) hold a high political or judicial office and still abide by the Constitution? Rev. Robert Sirico made a guest appearance on the Laura Ingraham Show this morning to...