Scrolling around...April 8, 2013

Cohabitation’s Transaction Costs
...Transaction costs, in an economic context, are the costs of making an exchange not directly associated with the price itself. If I, for example, have decided to buy a car from a friend who lives three hours away, one of those transaction costs is the drive to and from his house. The price my friend is asking for his car is not included in this type of cost, but the gas it takes to get there and back is. In the context of the breakup of a cohabiting couple, transaction costs are numerous and weighty. Disentangling finances and possessions, finding other residences, and moving out are no small costs...

Saddleback mourns after suicide of Rick Warren's son
...A coroner report said he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Mission Viejo after a long battle with mental illness...

Inside the Alpha Course - British Christianity's biggest success story
A small cloud hangs over the drab Victorian church of Holy Trinity Brompton, in west London. It's tempting to see it as the wisp of suspicion that, rightly or wrongly, lingers over Britain's most powerful evangelical church. This is the birthplace of Alpha, the "informal, friendly and fun" course now practised in 169 countries, which numbers the new Archbishop of Canterbury among its recruits...

Catholic Gonzaga University won’t allow Catholic students to form Catholic group
“The Knights of Columbus, by their very nature, is a men’s organization in which only Catholics may participate via membership,” reads a letter written by Sue Weitz, vice president for student life. “These criteria are inconsistent with the policy and practice of student organization recognition at Gonzaga University.”

US Army Labeled Evangelicals, Catholics as Examples of Religious Extremism
“It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization.”

Margaret Thatcher Dies After Stroke
Her children Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother had died peacefully following a stroke this morning.

Speaking to Sky News, spokesman and friend Lord Bell, who announced her death, said: "We’ll never see the like of her again. She was one of the great prime ministers of all time and transformed people's lives."

He described the former prime minister, a grocer's daughter from Grantham, as the greatest leader of the Conservative Party with the exception of Winston Churchill...

Reverend Leon and Obama Wrong on Easter
...The more important issue focuses on why Reverend Leon delivered this sermon in the first place. As a Jew, I am not an expert on Christian customs. But it would seem to me there are two days where religious leaders might keep their opinions on public policy to themselves – that would be Christmas and Easter. One would think they could stick to the subject at hand because it would seem those days are like the Super Bowl of Christianity. But Mr. Leon could not help himself and had to divert from the discussion of the Resurrection to assert himself into the national debate...