Via Best of the Web Today, an ment from Senator John Kerry: Democratic Sen. John Kerry called the Republican budget approved by the U.S. Senate “immoral” and said it will hurt cities like Manchester. “As a Christian, as a Catholic, I think hard about those responsibilities that are moral and how you translate them into public life,” the Massachusetts senator said at a rally Saturday in support of Democratic Mayor Bob Baines, who is running for re-election. “There is not...

In the days preceding the arrival of Hurricane Wilma in Florida, Center for Academic Research Director Samuel Gregg joined host John Rabe on Fort Lauderdale radio station WAFG’s Vocal Point show to discuss what, if any, relationship exists between the increased frequency of hurricanes over the past few years and global warming. You can listen to the 20 minute interview below. (MP4) ...

A long oral and written tradition about the mixing of species has been noted on this blog before, specifically with regard to Josephus. I just ran across this tidbit in Luther that I thought I would share, which points to a continuation of a tradition of this sort running down through the Reformation. Luther menting on the Old Testament character of Anah, and debating whether we might consider Anah to mitted incest. He writes: We could say that Anah also...

Black Americans have enjoyed only a mixed record of progress in the fifty years since Rosa Parks took her seat on that Montgomery bus. Anthony Bradley examines her legacy and the nature of liberty in today’s America. “Truly free blacks are those who are free to make their own morally formed choices without government involvement,” Bradley writes. Read the mentary here. ...

Whoops. This week, GM retracts its earnings report from four years ago, saying it overstated its profits by somewhere between $300-400 million dollars. The tendency with a story like this is to cry “fraud!” and then denounce corporate America for its inherently corrupt nature. Now, who can say what the cause is of this slip-up (blunder, goof, unbelievably huge mathematical oh-oh?)? But in the absence of the whole story, how proper is pessimism? Is it possible to be ambivalent toward...

God Bless America. 18-year-old Michael Sessions was elected mayor of Hillsdale, MI, on Tuesday in a write-in campaign. Aside from having a great addition to his college applications (Float Committee; Football; Honor Society; Mayor), Sessions has shown not only what the power of initiative can achieve in a free society, but the importance of individual involvement in politics, involvement that helps keep that society free. ...

ing Sunday, November 13, is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. The effort is billed as “a global day of intercession for persecuted Christians worldwide. Its primary focus is the work of intercessory prayer and citizen action on behalf of munities of the Christian faith. We also encourage prayer for the souls of the oppressors, the nations that promote persecution, and those who ignore it.” This effort is meant to embody the model of suffering given by...

An interesting piece in the new New Atlantis, The Moral Education of Doctors. …the transformation of doctoring in the image of science may also obscure, in important ways, the real character of the medical vocation. If we educate doctors solely or largely as mechanics of the body, we may leave them unprepared for the human encounter with the sick and desperate, the brave and dying, the healed and grateful. The point in a nutshell (with apologies to the author): there...

Those were the words of a German-born businessman in New York, quoted in today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed by Daniel Henninger. This lucky German continues: “A European at the age of 25, with little money but a lot of ambition and ideas, could not expect to move outside his own country–move to say the center of France, or the center of Italy, Belgium or any other country–and have much prospect of succeeding. He would remain an outsider.” In the wake...

The separation of church and state–that slippery topic–was dealt with recently with simplicity by the Holy Father. In speaking to the US Ambassador to the Vatican regarding ethics in politics, he said: “The disturbing spread of social disorder, war, injustice and violence in our world can ultimately be countered only by renewed appreciation and respect for the universal moral law whose principles derive from the Creator himself.” For the state to counter social ills, it must understand that societal problems...

By now most everyone has heard about Pat Robertson’s warning to a Pennsylvania town that voted out their school board. The move seemed to be in response to the board’s attempt to introduce curriculum including “intelligent design” theory. In an announcement to the people of Dover, PA, Robertson said: “if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God — you just rejected Him from your city.” Robertson advised the city’s residents to seek assistance from someone other...

Well, maybe not exactly. But apparently not every European nation has decided to turn its back on Christianity. The EUObserver reports that Slovaks are voting this week on their national euro coin design – and some notably Christian images are leading. (Click here to see the images.) It’s quite noteworthy that the Christian images are popular rather than dictated by the government. Not surprisingly, many Poles are pushing for the image of Pope John Paul II on their euro. Now...