Following up on my musings about the potential for the PlayStation 3 to position itself as the “family friendly” next-gen gaming system because of its on-board Blu-ray drive, it looks like Blu-ray is closing the gap on HD-DVD (HT: Slashdot): VideoScan’s numbers indicate that during the seven days between Jan 7 and Jan 14, Blu-ray managed to close the gap of total discs sold since inception with HD DVD by over seven percentage points, suggesting that if the current trend...

The story of a Confessing Church pastor and his family who ed in two prisoners who escaped from the Buchenwald concentration camp is told in, “Seeing the Other Side-60 Years after Buchenwald” (RealMedia). The short film, about 14 minutes, is based on Mona Sue Weissmark’s Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II. Why did Pastor Seebaß and his family help the prisoners and in the process endanger themselves? “It was all about loving your fellow man.” ...

Last month Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) reintroduced legislation from the previous Congress, this time as the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007, or GOFA (HT: Slashdot). According to mentary on Slashdot, “GOFA would create a U.S.-government-designated list of ‘Internet restricting countries’ and would in most cases prohibit panies from censoring content or turning over users’ information to the governments of those countries.” This law directly affects the situation panies like Yahoo!, Google, and MSN who have been pretty roundly criticized...

Speaking of the ubiquity of pornography in our culture, last week ABC News’ Nightline highlighted the work of XXXChurch, a ministry aimed at evangelizing porn stars and pornographers, as well as addressing the spiritual problems associated with consuming pornography. Check out the story, “The Porn Pastors: .” JR Mahon of the ministry says in the piece, “Our biggest critics are Christians.” Sadly es as no surprise. When XXXChurch came up with the idea of a New Testament with a cover...

I mentioned a long time ago that this book, with its provocative and interesting thesis, was in the works. Stepping Out of the Brain Drain: Applying Catholic Social Teaching in a New Era of Migration, by Michele Pistone and John Hoeffner, is now available from Lexington Books. The blurb: Catholic social teaching’s traditional opposition to “brain drain” migration from developing to developed countries is due for a reassessment. Stepping Out of the Brain Drain provides exactly this, as it demonstrates...

“We noticed that they took the umbrellas and the pens, but threw away the policy leaflets before they walked out of the door.” You don’t say? It’s the weekend; I can get away with a post like this on the weekend. Update: “If all the legislation the EU has passed were laid out lengthways it would be over 120 miles long, whilst legislation currently in force would be 31.7 miles long.” ...

Follow up thought, Kevin: Church indulgences had their roots in cheerful giving. Lots of cheerful “carbon giving” going on right now too; in fact, I’d call it downright prideful (which is why giving to God always had this condition on it). That cheerful giving morphed into aguilt-giving, and was ultimately mangled by the Guardians of Truth intoਊ pulsory tax on the faithful. Will we see a similar pattern emerge here? Would not be surprised. Nor would I expect such a...

It looks like Julianne Malveaux is going to have to expand plaint against the labeling of milk to a whole new spate of products, including yogurt. It may be that the whole scope of ing from the dairy industry is going to be affected. Here’s the label off a yogurt container that I ate out of last week: Malveaux is concerned that this kind of labeling, which she argues deceives the consumer into thinking that the product approximates “organic” certification,...

A favorable review of Will Smith’s The Pursuit of Happyness in Liberty: “The Importance of ‘Happyness’.” And just in case you thought that libertarians have no appreciation for social bonds whatsoever, here’s the conclusion of the piece: “Underlying this free-market philosophy, however, is a film that is unabashedly moving, demonstrating that true happiness does not lie in the accumulation of property alone, but in having someone to share the joy of good fortune. Without someone to tell, someone to care,...

So yeah, I’m a global warming skeptic. Why? Well, this sort of thing: Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. “It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves,...