Articles

PHILADELPHIA — One morning in February 2012, Prof. David Skeel received an email from a stranger named Patrick Arsenault. The message contained a thumbnail photo of the equation for calculating kinetic energy, and the signature line identified the writer as a postdoctoral fellow at the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. All of which gave Professor Skeel cause for…

“CHRISTMAS is at our throats again.” That was the cheery yuletide greeting favored by the late English playwright Noël Coward, commemorating the holiday after which he was named. Less contrarian were the words of President Calvin Coolidge: “Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in…

When the head of the CIA’s torture unit decided to destroy videotapes of his team’s horrific work, he unwittingly set in motion a series of events that led to the release this week of the most massive, detailed documentation of unlawful behavior by high-ranking government officials and intentional infliction of pain on noncombatants by the United States government since the…

For 36 years, Jim Garlow didn’t know his first adopted child was the result of a rape. But after his wife Carol lost a six-year battle with cancer last year, their daughter, Janie, went in search of her birth mother. In succeeding, Janie also discovered the horrific circumstances of her own conception. The story spurs Jim Garlow, a pastor in California, to…

The report by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding CIA interrogation essentially accuses the agency under George W. Bush of war criminality. Committee chair Dianne Feinstein appears to offer some extenuation when she reminds us in the report’s preamble of the shock and “pervasive fear” felt after 9/11. It’s a common theme (often echoed by President Obama): Amid panic…

Liberal House Democrats are fighting tooth and nail against President Obama over the fate of an enormous year-end government spending bill. With just hours to go before a scheduled government shutdown, the Democrats launched a lobbying blitz to counter calls made by Obama and other White House officials urging passage of the bill. Leading the charge was Rep. Maxine Waters…

First of all, it looks like the CRomnibus is in big trouble and that is good news. It seems more likely than not that the bill is going down, which is the best result here. But if the House is not able to get a bill passed that keeps the government running, you can blame no one but Rep. Nancy…

In a letter sent on December 9, 2014, Liberty Institute demanded that the United States Army revoke an unlawful violation of the religious rights of our client, Chaplain (Captain) Joseph “Joe” Lawhorn—a violation that could also jeopardize the lives of soldiers. Chaplain Lawhorn’s commanding officer called him away from his family on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, at Camp Merrill, Georgia….

Although abuse is significantly under-reported, current crime statistics at least begin to tell the story. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report routinely lists domestic violence as the leading cause of injury to women ages 15 to 44 in the United States. These injuries are more than those from car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. Abuse may be open, flagrant, and in-your-face….

“What is grey and furry and has a long bushy tail and beady little eyes?” A long pause in the Sunday school class was finally broken as one child volunteered, “I know the answer is supposed to be Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me.” That child’s answer illustrates an important truth. Jesus is central to all…

(CNN) — Composer Richard Wagner was an anti-Semite whose music was used, after his death, as Nazi propaganda. He was also,as some say, “one of the most gifted, historically important composers to ever grace the planet.” So fans of his music, including those in Israel, are willing to overlook his hideous views and embrace his art. This is what is…