The European Court of Human Rights has overturned a lower court’s decision to outlaw crucifixes in Italy’s public schools. Not only that, the court ruled that Christianity is, in fact, the religious foundation of European civilization, a fact that need not be hidden. The Grand Chamber ruling. . .recognizes that “human rights must not be placed in opposition to the religious foundations of European civilisation”. rules The decision is an affirmation of the respect owed to each country of the… Read more
Nominal Christians
March 23, 2011 By Gene Veith 1,566 Comments
In an article about sociologist Bradley Wright’s book Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media journalist Adelle M. Banks discusses his findings that Christians who go to church regularly have lower divorce rates, contrary to the assertion of other researchers that Christians have the same divorce rate as everybody else. We’ve talked about that topic, but what I’d like us to consider is another issue raised in the… Read more
Bungling the War in Libya?
March 23, 2011 By Gene Veith 132 Comments
Why are so many conservatives against the new war in Libya, liberals are asking, their assumption being that conservatives like war. Well, one thing that bothers those who believe in following the Constitution is that President Obama has gone to war at the behest of the United Nations. But he has not so much as asked Congress, which the Constitution explicitly gives the authority to declare war (even though presidents lately of both parties have flouted that Constitutional requirement). Are… Read more
Filming begins on “The Hobbit”
March 23, 2011 By Gene Veith 28 Comments
After one problem after another, including labor troubles in New Zealand, the movie version of J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit has gotten underway. The film will be shown in two parts, beginning in late 2012. The prequel to The Lord of the Rings features lots of the people who made the earlier trilogy, including director Peter Jackson. Also reprising their roles will be the actors who played Gandalf, Frodo, Gollum, and Galadriel. Martin Freeman will play Bilbo Baggins:… Read more
Maybe Christians aren’t so bad after all
March 22, 2011 By Gene Veith 176 Comments
Bradley Wright, a professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, has published a book entitled Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media This is the book that provides the research we blogged about earlier that Christians who faithfully attend church do not, in fact, as is often said, have the same divorce rate as non-Christians. What’s especially interesting to me is that Professor Wright takes on the… Read more
And now .xxx
March 22, 2011 By Gene Veith 66 Comments
There will now be a new domain name just for pornography: .xxx. However, pornography will still continue to populate the .coms and every other domain also. The big opponents: The porn industry, which knows that the creation of an internet red light district will mean their product be easier to block: On Friday in San Francisco, the California nonprofit that oversees Internet addresses gave the green light to the virtual red-light district. The vote comes after several years of clashes… Read more
Black swans
March 22, 2011 By Gene Veith 34 Comments
In the new words department: The disaster bureaucrats talk about black swans: calamities from out of the blue, terrible and strange. The world is now transfixed by the black swan disaster of Japan — an earthquake larger than seismologists thought could happen in that part of the country, leading to a tsunami too big for the sea walls, and now a nuclear crisis that wasn’t supposed to be possible. via Japan’s ‘black swan’: Scientists ponder the unparalleled dangers of unlikely… Read more
War #3
March 21, 2011 By Gene Veith 118 Comments
We started our third war. The United Nations called for a no-fly zone in Libya, to try to stop dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s military strikes against Libyans protesting his rule. This time NATO allies are playing a big role, with the French launching airstrikes against Gaddafi’s tanks. (How do aircraft attacking ground targets, other than air defense sites, relate to the mandate of establishing a no-fly zone?) But the U.S. is in it too, launching 112 Tomahawk missiles against Libya, as… Read more
Majority of Americans now back gay marriage
March 21, 2011 By Gene Veith 120 Comments
And majority rules: A slim majority of Americans now support gay marriage, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.The results underscore the nation’s increasingly tolerant views about homosexuals, and parallel a string of recent legal and legislative victories for gay rights advocates. Five years ago, at 36 percent, support for gay marriage barely topped a third of all Americans. Now, 53 percent say gay marriage should be legal, marking the first time in Post-ABC polling that a majority has… Read more
Problems with the food supply
March 21, 2011 By Gene Veith 46 Comments
Just in case you need something else to worry about, global food prices are skyrocketing (here not so much–yet), due to increased demand and shorter supplies: Since last summer, several events — floods in Australia, blistering drought in Russia, the threat of a poor winter wheat crop in China — have compounded concerns about the food supply and pushed world prices to the highest levels measured since the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization began calculating its index in 1990. For… Read more
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