Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Public Policy

April 29, 2005

Blog market

In traversing the World Wide Web, I’ve happened across BlogShares, “a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by incoming links.” As the Acton Institute PowerBlog heads toward its one month anniversary, check out it’s BlogShare value. Continue Reading...
April 28, 2005

Law signed protecting filtering industry

President Bush signed a bill into law yesterday that exempts companies such as ClearPlay from litigation for copyright infringement. ClearPlay, for example, offers a DVD player that will filter out “objectionable” content. Continue Reading...
April 28, 2005

Immigration confusion

There’s been a lot of talk in recent days about the question of immigration, both legal and illegal. A number of issues are involved, including questions about national security, economic concerns, and cultural values. Continue Reading...
April 28, 2005

NAS releases guidelines

The National Academies of Science has issued a set of guidelines for human embryonic stem (ES) cell research. The guidelines also address the chimera phenomenon. The guidelines open a path for experiments that create animals that contain some introduced human embyronic stem cells. Continue Reading...
April 27, 2005

Power Ball

Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs in 1998.An article in The New York Times magazine over the weekend provides an up-close look at the stories of two men impacted by the burgeoning problem of steroid use in baseball. Continue Reading...
April 26, 2005

Free and fair trade

S.T. Karnick at Signs of the Times passes along the words of Dr. Sean Gabb, an English Libertarian author, on the debate about fair trade, which is driven in large part by Christian groups (see Acton Commentaries here and here). Continue Reading...
April 26, 2005

Defend civilization itself

An excerpt from a worthy commencement address by Mark Helprin, “Defend Civilization Itself,” delivered at Hillsdale College on May 24, 2002: I ask you to join this brotherhood, and, in your own way, whatever that may be, to defend and champion the sanctity of the individual, free and objective inquiry, government by consent of the governed, freedom of conscience, and the pursuit — rather than the degradation and denial — of truth and of beauty. Continue Reading...
April 25, 2005

Warring against Wal-Mart

The big box giant Wal-Mart is under attack again, this time by a coalition of varied opponents. The group, named “Wal-Mart Watch,” took out an ad in The New York Times last Wednesday, accusing the retailer “of low pay and meager employee benefits that force their workers to rely on Medicaid, food stamps, and federal housing to survive,”. Continue Reading...