Joe Carter

Sign of the times of the day: When the city of Cambridge issues paychecks to its public employees, nearly two dozen workers find a federal tax on their income that their colleagues don’t have to pay. Like many people, these 22 school and city workers chose to put their spouses on their . . . . Continue Reading »

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has a plan for ending the federal budget deficit: I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection. Sounds like a good idea to . . . . Continue Reading »

Benedict XVI and the Future of the West , Standpoint (George Weigel) ‘Strict Separationism’ Runs Amok , National Review Online (William E. Simon Jr. & Matthew J. Franck) Mitt Romney’s religion appeals to Jews , Deseret News (Jamshid Ghazi Askar) In Israel, diggers unearth the . . . . Continue Reading »

Sign of the times of the day: Jindal signed House Bill 636 by Rep. Frank Hoffman, R-West Monroe, into law Wednesday in front of a crowd at the First Baptist Church of West Monroe. The law requires that signs be posted around abortion facilities and include pertinent information about a . . . . Continue Reading »

A British psychologist says that romance novels are influencing “a huge number of the issues that we see in our clinics and therapy rooms”: Blaming romance novels for unprotected sex, unwanted pregnancies, unrealistic sexual expectations and relationship breakdowns, author and . . . . Continue Reading »

1. How to Beat a Roomful of Chess Champions [Language warning: Contains one British expletive] °°°°°° 2. How giving 110% is actually possible °°°°°° 3. Women drivers are more dangerous behind the wheel, scientists discover Women drivers . . . . Continue Reading »

Is Sex Just Like Race? , Public Discourse (Matthew J. Franck) Jackknife Theology and the Worship of Objects , Front Porch Republic (Jason Peters) Hoyas Whip the Irish , The Catholic Thing (Scott Walter) Harry Potter And Christian Theology , HuffPost Religion (Danielle Tumminio) Yes, I’m . . . . Continue Reading »

Sociologist Peter Berger has a theory about why religious believers tend to have more kids than their secular peers: I will venture a hypothesis. Religion has always given its adherents a sense of living in a meaningful universe. This protects individuals from what sociologists call anomie—a . . . . Continue Reading »

Is college a scam? John Stossel (B.A., Princeton University) thinks so . But he chooses the wrong examples to make his point: What do Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Mark Cuban have in common? They’re all college dropouts. Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Peter Jennings have in . . . . Continue Reading »

Over on Tablet magazine, my buddy Liel Leibovitz has an intriguing take on the new film, Tree of Life : The movie industry, accustomed to delivering its encomiums loudly and quickly each weekend, was scrambling for superlatives when introducing Terrence Malick’s new film, The Tree of Life. The . . . . Continue Reading »