It has been a long time since I have written anything on books I am reading. I think I have a winner in a relatively new book by Joel Mokyr entitled The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850, published by Penguin Books and Yale University in 2011 and 2009. Now I know the […]
Archives
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Book Review on the Industrial Revolution
07 Apr 2015
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The Minimum Wage as Maximum Trouble
07 Apr 2015
McDonald’s just announced a wage increase for its employees to ten dollars per hour. But the reaction was not gratitude but protests by union-led workers who are advocating for fifteen dollars per hour. The debate on the wage rate is tied to the equally contentious debate about inequality of income. I am not wading into […]
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A Different/Similar Take on the Indiana Law
01 Apr 2015
This blog serves as somewhat of a response to Mark Smith’s blog. It is different however in that it deals primarily with legal and broader theological issues. By now most know something about the stir in Indiana—I can feel the reverberations from across the border—concerning the recently passed state law protecting those with religious […]
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Ted Cruz, Rights and the Media
30 Mar 2015
Looks like the Media—short for Mainstream Media or MSM—are at it again, this time getting hot and bothered over Ted Cruz’s speechifying about our God-given rights, exceptionalism, and all that. The so-called “God-made” Constitution left several of the MSM hooting with ridicule. Their reaction of course was (predictably) to say that the Constitution and the […]
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As Robby Soave of Reason.com pointed out in a March 22 article, students today come to college with a basic problem. They are scared on ideas that challenge them. Soave gave an illustration of this from a debate between a left-feminist, Jessica Valenti, and a libertarian feminist, Wendy McElroy at Brown Univesity. Apparently some students […]
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Charles Murray at Cedarville University
13 Mar 2015
The ideas of most humans are formed by their basic worldview combined with their existential circumstances. I believe this fairly self-evident statement applies in particular to the talk given by Dr. Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute at Cedarville University, Thursday night, March 12. Murray is a brilliant man and his talk was a […]
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A Bad Proposal
06 Mar 2015
An Inside Higher Ed piece by Paul Fain (“Free Community College: It Works,” Feb. 5, 2015) argues that providing free education at community colleges works because, get this it leads to “increased degree production.” Well there is a brilliant study, stating the obvious, but not really getting the point that when something is “free” the […]
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Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Speech
03 Mar 2015
I hope many of your were able to listen to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech today before a joint meeting of Congress. I also hope my Berean colleagues will weigh in with their comments on the speech and the context for it. As you may know, Prime Minister Netanyahu was invited by Speaker of the House of […]
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A Change of Climate
02 Mar 2015
It seems like a good time to move from discussions about Islam to Global Warming or, to accept the new view, Global Climate Change (GCC). Believe it or not, this topic has a Christian dimension, even though it might not be immediately evident. We will get to that in due time. To begin, let’s review […]
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When are Non-Terrorists Terrorists
25 Feb 2015
It has been reported that the Department of Homeland Security issued a paper urging its employees to be on the look-out for “right-wing extremists (Washington Times, February 21, 2015). CNN, which originally mentioned the report, quoted an administration official: “’I don’t think it’s fair to say the (White House) conference didn’t address this at all,” […]