Religion & Liberty Online Archives

News and Events

July 22, 2005

Drunk pilots going to prison

Thomas Cloyd, 47, of Peoria, Ariz., and co-pilot Christopher Hughes, 44, of Leander, Texas, have been sentenced after a June 8 conviction for being drunk when they settled into the cockpit of a Phoenix-bound America West jetliner in 2002. Continue Reading...
July 20, 2005

Pentagon keeps close watch on China’s military build-up

In an annual report to Congress the Pentagon claims that China now has up to 730 short-range ballistic missiles on its coast opposite Taiwan. Last year’s report found only 500. The Pentagon said China could now be spending up to $90 billion a year on defense, and that its military build-up is putting the region at risk. Continue Reading...
July 19, 2005

For Associate Justice – John G. Roberts, Jr.

President Bush announced tonight that he has chosen federal appeals judge John Roberts to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Roberts is not a well known figure, but has garnered respect from across the political spectrum throughout his career: John G. Continue Reading...
July 14, 2005

Bastille day

On this date in 1789, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison, sparking the French Revolution. Here’s a quote from Lord Acton comparing the American and the French revolutions: “What the French took from the Americans was their theory of revolution, not their theory of government — their cutting, not their sewing.” Continue Reading...
July 13, 2005

Updates from the EU

A morning blend of stories ranging from the strange to the maddening: Car-pool no-no: “a group of French cleaning ladies who organised a car-sharing scheme to get to work are being taken to court by a coach company which accuses them of ‘an act of unfair and parasitical competition’.” Continue Reading...
July 12, 2005

9/11 made me do it

Jason Battista, 28, is citing stress from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in a bid for less prison time, the second time the argument has been used by a bank robber. Continue Reading...
July 11, 2005

Moral philosophers on the bench

Over at OpinionJournal, Robert Bork examines the effects of “radical personal autonomy” on American jurisprudence in “Their Will Be Done: How the Supreme Court Sows Moral Anarchy.” Says Bork: Once the justices depart, as most of them have, from the original understanding of the principles of the Constitution, they lack any guidance other than their own attempts at moral philosophy, a task for which they have not even minimal skills. Continue Reading...
July 11, 2005

World population day

Today is the UN-sponsored World Population Day, which most of us have never heard of, I’m sure. From the name, I cynically (and rightly) assumed that rather than celebrating human life, this day would instead address many of the spurious “crowded planet” concerns put forth most popularly in Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (first edition 1968). Continue Reading...
July 07, 2005

Monstrous

Another day of tragic news. The thoughts and prayers of all of us here at Acton are with the victims of today’s terrorist attacks in London. Continue Reading...