Two not-so-obviously related news items from today’s Marketplace midday update: #1) pany Pfizer says it’ll change the way it markets drugs to people. pany announced this morning it will educate doctors for at least 6 months about new medicines before running television or print ads. Pfizer also says it won’t advertise male impotence drugs during the Super Bowl. #2) Rafael Palmeiro is heading back to work after serving a 10-day suspension for using steroids. Business of sports analyst David Carter...

The nomination process has begun for this year’s Novak Award. Named after theologian Michael Novak, this $10,000 prize rewards new outstanding research into the relationship between religion and economic liberty. We encourage professors, university faculty members, and other scholars to nominate those who pleting exceptional research into themes relevant to the mission and vision of the Acton Institute. Suitable nominees will have received their doctorate in the past five years or be a doctoral candidate working closely with themes relevant...

Greg Gutfield’s rather humorous item at The Huffington Post makes me wonder about this question: What would Jesus fly? (Not to be confused with mon slogan: “Jesus is my copilot.”) While I’m pretty sure that it would be some sort of cumulus-based transport (read “clouds”; see Acts 1:9, 1 Thessalonians 4:17, and Revelation 1:7; 14:14-16), we can be certain that it would not be a private jet. Look, he ing with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even...

In John Stossel’s article yesterday, he recounts a story that illustrates the dangers of artificial wage controls. (Davis Bacon is a federal law that requires construction workers be paid an amount determined by a bureaucratic formula instead of wages determined by market forces.) When Chicago decided to repair the Cabrini Green housing project, people who lived in the project assumed such a big job would provide work for the unemployed young men who grew up there. But because of Davis...

Roy Spencer at Tech Central Station examines some of the latest climatology research published in the journal Science. One essential point of the new findings is that the temperature readings based on satellite information may not be as reliable as previously thought. The satellite readings of the atmosphere had been at significant variance from surface temperature readings. As Spencer states of the article by Mears & Wentz, “Their final estimate of the global lower tropospheric trend through 2004 is +0.19...

This mentary by David Michael Phelps cites a University of Chicago study showing “that seventy-six percent of physicians believe in God, and fifty-five percent say their faith influences their medical practice.” Another new study by Rice University sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund “surveyed 1,646 faculty members at elite research universities, asking 36 questions about belief and spiritual practices.” Ecklund’s survey covers a variety of scientific disciplines, and as the LiveScience report puts it, “Those in the social sciences are more likely...

Check out this piece at Christianity Today about churches in Zimbabwe providing shelter to the poor who have been dispossessed by Pres. Mugabe’s “drive out trash” campaign: “One Christian worker who requested anonymity said, ‘In some parts of Harare, people have gone to spend the nights in their local churches. People are squeezed into just about every space available. Churches have been openly warned not to help the ‘refugees,’ but how can you turn down someone who is hungry and...

Given the discussion that’s been going on around the Acton site over the last week or so,I’m pointing out this timely piece (now archived) in yesterday’s St. Paul Pioneer Press, co-written by Todd Flanders, an Acton adjunct scholar and headmaster of Providence Academy. Flanders’ co-author is Dr. Yvonne Boldt, chair of the science department at the academy. In “The origin of the biology debate Intelligent design movement says the science isn’t settled on how life is shaped,” (now archived) Flanders...

In an interview with The Space Review Richard Garriott, vice-chairman of Space Adventures discusses the possibilities of space tourism and the potential market in the United States. Garriott describes Space Adventures as currently an [travel] agent, and we have millions of dollars in cash paid reservations for sub orbital flights. But with few or no suborbital space lines to book today, we are working to ensure they exist and that may mean SA invests in that eventuality. Garriott looks forward...

An article from Nature examines how even human activity as inherently destructive as military exercises can actually boost biodiversity. In “Military exercises ‘good for endangered species,'” Michael Hopkin writes of the results of a study conducted following US military exercises in Germany. Ecologist Steven Warren of Colorado State University says that “military land can host more species than agricultural land.” And “What’s more, its biodiversity can also exceed that of natural parks, where species that need disturbance cannot get a...

What Amrith Lal calls patriotism in this piece from the Times of India is probably more accurately called nationalism, but the point is well-taken nonetheless. The brief essay begins: As practised in our times, it is religion at its worst. The canons of morality and logic are lost on it. All that is expected of the patriot is blind devotion to an abstract entity called the state or whatever that symbolises the state. Needless to say, the state can never...

There’s yet more evidence that supports my claim, “Besieged by the media and public opinion, quick-service restaurants have got the reputation for being unhealthy. But the truth of the matter is plex. Franchises that have put an emphasis on providing healthy foods have done well…. And as usual, the service industry has responded quickly and efficiently to customer demands.” The AP reports, “Inspired by the documentary ‘Super Size Me,’ Merab Morgan decided to give a fast-food-only diet a try. The...