In an essay for TCS Daily last week, Arnold Kling wrote, “With or without the words ‘under God,’ the Pledge of Allegiance feels to me like a prayer. It’s a fairly nice prayer, and I have no problem with having it taught in private schools. I have no problem praying for my country — such a prayer is included in the standard weekly service at my synagogue. But government institutions ought not to be telling people how to pray.” The...

Oprah isn’t the only one opening a school in Africa. Fraser Valley Christian High School and Surrey Christian School in Canada have partnered together with Christian Extension Services in Sierra Leone, Africa to build a Christian Primary School in Kabala. This partnership is one of the initiatives I highlighted in a previous Acton Commentary. The partnership has released its first newsletter (PDF here), which chronicles recent news and events, including prayer requests and special opportunities for donation. Also be sure...

Behold the rise of the perfect coalition: the climate change brigades and the Roswell True Believers! A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday. “I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation … that could be a way to save our planet,” Paul Hellyer, 83,...

I have discovered this week that Florida has a major problem with teenage violence against the homeless. In a new twist on violent crime incidents the homeless are being attacked across this state regularly. In St. Petersburg two homeless men, ages 43 and 53, were shot to death in January in separate incidents. The two men indicted for these two crimes are 18 and 20. There were 41 incidents of violence against the homeless in 2006, more than in any...

The John A. Ryan Institute at the University of St. Thomas has been organizing a series of international conferences on Catholic Social Thought and Management Education. The latest was on the topic “The Good Company: Catholic Social Thought and Corporate Social Responsibility in Dialogue.” You can access a number of the papers through this site. These conferences are usually a mixed bag, so investigate at your own risk. But there are always a few outstanding presentations and this edition is...

Good news (at least I think it is). Acton.org is a site not blocked by the “Great Firewall of China” (i.e. government censors). A big HT to GetReligion (which is blocked). ...

Have you heard about Logos Bible Software? Here’s a bit about the founding of pany from the February NewsWire update (and on their blog here): “A couple of young Microsoft programmers with their entire careers of high-pay and lucrative Microsoft stock options ahead of them, dropped everything to join a partner and risk it all on pursuing their dream.” The story continues: “They weren’t satisfied with using their skills to help businessmen have access to the latest and greatest in...

In a follow up to The Goracle’s energy bill imbroglio, Bill Hobbs has this stunner today: As the controversy over global warming hypemaster Al Gore’s voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there’s an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. In its original story, The Tennessean reported that Gore buys “carbon offsets” pensate for his home’s use of energy from carbon-based fuels. As Wikipedia explains, a carbon offset “is a service that tries to reduce the net...