Nicholas Kristof: There’s an ugly secret of global poverty, one rarely acknowledged by aid groups or U.N. reports. It’s a blunt truth that is politically incorrect, heartbreaking, frustrating and ubiquitous: It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would…

David Mills brilliantly lays into the laziness of people who like to say that they’re “spiritual, but not religious.” Excerpt: It’s one of those easily remembered phrases that work like a “get out of jail free” card for anyone who feels he has to explain his lack of religious practice, and as a claim to…

A short, scary video by Karl Denninger:UPDATE: More cheery economic analysis from the Daily Telegraph’s Edmund Conway: Mervyn King, the Bank of England Governor, summed it up best: “Dealing with a banking crisis was difficult enough,” he said the other week, “but at least there were public-sector balance sheets on to which the problems could…

A very sad letter from a Dominican brother, used with permission: I spent my pastoral year working at our mission in Mexico, and I also work with Hispanics here in the states. As a cult, La Santa Muerte is growing in Mexico and other parts of Latin America and the United States, and it is…

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