Dispel the Illusion

Drugs and alcohol consumption are fuelling a 'sexual health crisis' among young Britons, a report reveals today. The sharp rise in sexually transmitted infections and high levels of teenage pregnancy in the UK are 'disturbing' and there is 'no doubt' that alcohol and drugs are to blame for encouraging high risk sexual behaviour, the study warns.

New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran. U.S. government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers.

A new national poll revealed that Americans want a religious person to be president. Over half of all respondents with an opinion (60.7 percent) believe a presidential candidate should be religious while 39.3 percent do not, according to the poll released Thursday by the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute.

More than one million computers - possibly yours, too - are used by hackers as remote-controlled robots to crash online systems, accept spam and steal users' personal information, the FBI said Wednesday. The government has no way to track down all the computers, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, that hackers have massed into centrally controlled collections known as botnets.

I'M 19 and last year I had an abortion - I think about what I did every day. I get so upset sometimes I can't control my tears and I don't know where to turn. The guilt I feel churns me up.

The present issue is miracles, and the physical traces of miracles, what science can explain, what science in the (near?) future may be able to explain about "mind over matter" and about the staggering potential of human healing. None of which should in any way undercut one's belief in God.

The West is awash with fear of the Islamization of Europe. The rise of Islam, many warn, could transform the continent into “Eurabia,” a term popularized by Harvard historian Niall Ferguson and other pundits ... Such grim prophecies may sell books, but they ignore reality. For all we hear about Islam, Europe remains a stronger Christian fortress than people realize. What’s more, it is showing little sign of giving ground to Islam or any other faith for that matter.

One senior executive was fired and another reassigned yesterday as the fallout from a scandal involving allegations of fraud and suspicious insider wins at the provincial lottery corporation widened ... Vice-president Ingrid Peters was fired after eight years with the company. She earned more than $267,000 in 2006, according to documents containing the province's top public sector earners.

Christians have been a traditional bridge between the mainly Muslim Middle East and the largely Christian West, transcending religion and emphasizing the similarities between cultures. Among the most highly educated in the region, they were often its moderates and negotiators with the outside world. Without them, says Nina Shea, director of the Washington-based Center for Religious Freedom, "we'll see greater Islamization of the people who stay behind."

The Orthodox Righteous Court of Law (Badatz) have placed a curse on the organizers and participants in the gay pride parade scheduled to take place in Jerusalem next Thursday. The curse also applied to police forces that will secure the event.

Imports from China were recalled by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission twice as often as products made everywhere else in the world, including the U.S., a WND study of government 2007 reports shows. Of the 152 product recalls announced by the commission since January, 104 have been for products made in China.

Because there are real dangers to vaccines, we owe it to our children, to ourselves and to God to become informed, and then make our decisions based on what is truly right for us, not on other people's notions of what they think serves the collective good. They might well be wrong. Remember, despite the medical establishment's paramount concern over "herd immunity," we are not cattle.

Integration of the three nations' economies, as well as the creation of a shared transportation infrastructure (both of which are stated goals of NAFTA and NASCO, respectively), are the first steps within a broader plan to merge the three into a single entity similar to the European Union.

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting. Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

The United Church of Canada has baptized apostasy as legitimate theology. It is pro-choice. It is pro-homosexual practice. It is pro-everything liberal. It is anti-Scripture as divine revelation. Many clergy do not regard Christ as divine. Likewise, many discount biblical teachings regarding hell, Satan and sin. In other words, the United Church of Canada has joined the other religious conclaves that have turned their backs on God for the pagan dogmas.

New evidence suggests that shifting production overseas has inflicted worse damage on the U.S. economy than the numbers show. BusinessWeek has learned of a gaping flaw in the way statistics treat offshoring, with serious economic and political implications. Top government statisticians now acknowledge that the problem exists, and say it could prove to be significant.

The words "natural family," "marriage" and "union of a man and a woman" can be punished as "hate speech" in government workplaces, according to a lawsuit that is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court ... The case originated five years ago in Oakland, Calif.

Tony Blair has discussed becoming a Roman Catholic deacon when he quits office. The revelation comes as he prepares to meet the Pope amid speculation that he will use the audience in the Vatican to announce his conversion.

The Bohemian Grove Club holds an annual summer camp at which members, who include Henry Kissinger, former President George Bush Senior, Clint Eastwood and Bob Weir, founder member of Sixties rock band the Grateful Dead, debate world politics, perform weird mock Druid ceremonies – and, it turns out, ogle a poster of a blonde in a thong.

W.F. Deedes ... has participated in public life for over 70 years ... "I have never known a time when government exercised more control over every aspect of our lives," he says, pointing to the sheer size of the state and the inroads it has made into "personal liberty, fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility." "We are, dear boy, on the verge of a permanent change in the national character. It is very sad."