There is a bill pending in the Scottish Parliament to legalize assisted suicide. It’s author recently “narrowed” the bill to protect the vulnerable. But the narrowed bill would explicitly legalize assisted suicide for people with disabilities, once again clearly demonstrating that . . . . Continue Reading »
Damian Thompson reflects on the death of British reality-TV star Jade Goody and what the media attention given the event says about our society: Jade Goody has died. Move along now, there’s nothing more to see. Unless you count her grief-stricken relatives and “grieving” crowds, . . . . Continue Reading »
I have written how radical environmentalism is becoming distinctly anti-human. With the fervent ideology of Deep Ecology, it is explicitly stated. But some of what we are witnessing among the neo Greens is a drive to sacrifice human flourishing and prosperity—without the explicitly stated . . . . Continue Reading »
Yesterday I mentioned an article by William Saletan about surrogate mothers in California who, because they stopped being paid for their services, had every right to abort the child that, genetically speaking, wasn’t even theirs. As I said, the case is “another example of how in vitro . . . . Continue Reading »
Biscuits aren’t just a staple for judges. According to Ben Schott , in the RAF a “meeting without coffee” means a dressing down by a senior officer. And for serious malefactors the penalty is more severe: “In the Royal Air Force one is summoned to a ‘meeting with tea . . . . Continue Reading »
Here’s a novel way to address declining birthrates, and it seems to be working: Two years after having one of the lowest birth rates in the world, Georgia is enjoying something of a baby boom, following an intervention from the country’s most senior cleric. At the end of 2007, in a move . . . . Continue Reading »
This, from a highly readable monograph, Religious Liberties: Nondiscrimination Rules and Religious Associational Freedom by Gregory S. Baylor & Timothy J. Tracey : It is difficult to overstate the threat to religious freedom posed by religion and sexual orientation nondiscrimination rules. A . . . . Continue Reading »
From John Donne, the great seventeenth-century lyric poet and Catholic-turned-Anglican churchman, we have this lovely poem on the mystery of the Incarnation. It comes near the beginning of his sonnet sequence La Corona , which takes key moments the story of Redemptionmysteries of the . . . . Continue Reading »
I really hope this doesn’t become a pattern: German police say at least one of the identical twin brothers Hassan and Abbas O. may have perpetrated a recent multimillion euro jewelry heist in Berlin. But because of their indistinguishable DNA, neither can be individually linked to the crime. . . . . Continue Reading »
As if the economic crisis weren’t depressing enough already: Complimentary elevenses have been scrapped in courthouses across the county of Kent in an attempt to save around £20,000 a year. The decision has caused uproar among the normally subdued ranks of JPs, with some arguing . . . . Continue Reading »