Some new developments on the idea to move cable television to an a la carte subscription model: Christians and minorities are “concerned.” According to the Christian Science Monitor, FCC chairman Kevin Martin is pressuring cable providers to move away from the tier-based subscription system to “a full thumbs-up/thumbs-down choice of individual channels.” In what’s sure to tweak the sensibilities of the cable industry, Martin threatened that if no such moves were made, “basic indecency and profanity restrictions may be a...

Continuing the discussion of energy usage from yesterday, check out this review in the New York Sun of Children of the Sun (W.W. Norton), by Alfred Crosby, emeritus professor of history, geography, and American studies at the University of Texas. Reviewer Peter Pettus says that Crosby “has written a direct and clearly expressed analysis of the energy problem without hysterics, apocalyptic threats, or partisan rancor.” These, of course, are the precisely the characteristics that are so often found in discussions...

Many of you may have already heard of the new line of Levi’s jeans due out later this year, the patible RedWire DLX jeans: “With a joystick remote control built into the watch pocket, the new jeans will allow wearers to play, pause, track forward or back and adjust the volume on their iPods without having to take them out of their pockets.” There is also a built-in pocket designed to “conceal the bulge of the iPod.” But Levi Strauss...

There’s interesting news on the global warming front in today’s Financial Times: Everyone knows trees are “A Good Thing”. They take in the carbon dioxide that threatens our planet with global warming and turn it into fresh, clean oxygen for us all to breathe. But now it seems we need to think again. In a discovery that has left climate scientists gasping, researchers have found that the earth’s vegetation is churning out vast quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas far...

Apologies for a second Apple-related post in a row, but I thought this example might prove to be a decent case-study petition in the marketplace. One of the new products that Apple recently introduced was iWeb, a new program that makes it easy “to create websites and blogs plete with podcasts, photos and movies — and get them online, fast.” Why do I bring this up? The reason is that a small pany has been working on a similar program,...

The U.N. and many of its attendant NGOs have often supported dubious and even Orwellian interpretations of human rights (pushing, for example, for coercive population control measures in the name of reproductive “freedom”). A new group, the International Solidarity and Human Rights Institute aims to promote an agenda more in keeping with a Christian concept of rights. One of its goals is to influence the U.N. positively on this issue. Godspeed. ...

After decades of civil unrest, the African nation of Liberia has elected the first female head of state in the history of the continent. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist and veteran of international affairs, was sworn in yesterday in the capital city of Monrovia. Founded in 1822, Liberia is Africa’s oldest republic, and the result of the work of the “American Colonization Society to settle freed American slaves in West Africa. The society contended that the immigration of blacks to...

A Stanford expert on philanthropy argues that tax-deductible American charity is actually a government subsidy and that philanthropy is not ‘redistributive’ enough. Acton’s Karen Woods points out (obvious to most) that helping the needy is not the exclusive domain of the state. “The real problem with government ‘charity’ is that government takes a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the problem of poverty,” Woods writes. Read mentary here. ...

Mark your calendars: The Institute for the Study of Christianity and Culture at Michigan State University is hosting a conference on April 7-8 with the keynote address to be given by Dr. Randall Balmer, Ann Whitney Olin Professor, Barnard College, Columbia University. From the conference site: “Dr. Balmer will be giving a lecture and a panel discussion on the topic of his ing book Taking the Country Back: How the Religious Right is Winning the Culture Wars.” There will also...

A couple of weeks ago, I noted the amazing “just do it” outpouring passion in response to the wildfires in the Central Plains. My small home town in Oklahoma was among those areas burned or seriously damaged by the fires. Since Nov. 1, more than 363,000 acres, 220 structures and four deaths have been attributed to these wildfires. Much of the destruction has occurred on Indian trust lands within such areas as the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee Creek and Seminole tribal...

John H. Armstrong tackles the question, “How Should Government Deal with Poverty?” He writes, “A regular argument made, at least from some evangelical political voices from the political left, is to cite numerous Old Testament texts about poverty and then suggest that one of the central concerns of a just government is to solve the problems associated with poverty.” He cuts to the heart of such fallacious reasoning, recognizing “No one who has an ounce passion disagrees that Christians should...

Richard Burr has an mentary in the Weekly Standard on the growing — and for some reasons puzzling — popularity of hybrid vehicles. Puzzling because these things don’t get the promised gains in fuel economy and don’t seem to work very well. Imagine buying a Chevy Impala or a Toyota Camry and being told that you can’t run the air conditioner on high. Or you need lessons from the dealer on how to brake the vehicle in order to recharge...