Dispel the Illusion

Banks, shops and government departments have exposed thousands in Britain to the risk of fraud through "horrifying" breaches of data protection laws, a watchdog said on Wednesday. In his annual report, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, whose office enforces the Data Protection Act, said firms must do more to secure people's private details.

Humans will be eating meat produced from cloned animals within three years, scientists predicted yesterday. American farmers are expected to be given the go-ahead to sell beef, pig and dairy products produced from the offspring of genetic copies by the end of the decade.

A crime-ridden high street in north London has been branded the most spied-upon road in Britain, after it emerged that it is watched over by more than 100 closed circuit television cameras ... Civil liberties groups are alarmed by the number of opportunities for the state to watch people in Holloway Road, particularly as they claim surveillance cameras do not always help to reduce crime.

Michael Jursa, a visiting professor from Vienna, let out such a cry last Thursday. He had made what has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, a discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact.

Families should restrict themselves to having a maximum of two children to stabilise the effect on the environment of Britain's rapidly growing population, a thinktank warns today. According to the Optimum Population Trust, Britain's rising birth rate, currently growing at the highest rate for nearly 30 years, should be considered an environmental liability.

Drive either direction on Ga. 92 in Woodstock, drive south from Cherokee County on I-75 or head north up I-85 and you're likely to see the billboards with Patsy Tripodo smiling down on you. "Jesus healed my wife: Patsysmiracle.com." Who is Patsy, and what's with these billboards? Ron Tripodo is glad you asked.

Historian Anne W. Carroll explains: "Pius XII instructed churches, monasteries, and convents in Rome to take in Jews. Altogether, 55 monasteries and 100 convents in Rome were hiding Jews. Many Jews found refuge in the Vatican itself." ... "The Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives during the war than all the other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations put together," said Pinchas E. Lapids, Israeli consul in Italy.

Younger voters, especially women, are embracing a pro-life position in surprising numbers and in sharp contrast to attitudes that held sway 15 years ago, according to a new study. The study by Overbrook Research, a public consulting firm in Illinois, examines public opinion data from Missouri. With proportions of blacks, Catholics and union members in line with national averages, the state is viewed as "highly representative of the American electorate," the study says.

When I saw the band's front man, Sir Gordon Sumner (a.k.a. "Sting"), promise the Live Earth concert crowd last weekend that he would "work to reduce" his carbon footprint, I laughed out loud. Just what would that mean? Limiting his promoters to using just 12 semis? It's a safe bet that The Police's 38-site, six-month tour will generate a bigger "carbon footprint" than I will in my entire lifetime. Ten lifetimes. Even if I disconnected the catalytic converter on my full-sized SUV and ripped off the muffler.

A band of disgruntled conservatives plans to throw a new party into the mix for Ontario voters as they gear up for the provincial election in October. Anthony Silvestro, the group's spokesman, described the party, named the Ontario Alternative, as the first step in what he hopes will become a national alternative to the federal Conservative party.

It’s becoming abundantly clear that the arguments conservatives have been making against “gay marriage” are spot-on. The vast majority of homosexuals don’t desire “marriage;” rather, militant homosexual activists desire to use “same-sex marriage” as both a tool to normalize homosexual behaviors and as a weapon to tear down the institution of legitimate marriage.

Kids just aren't as big a part of American life as they used to be. Americans' child-free years are expanding as empty-nest seniors live longer and more young adults delay – or skip – childbearing. In 1960, nearly half of all households had children under 18. By 2000, the portion had fallen to less than a third, and in a few short years it's projected to drop to a quarter, according to a report from the National Marriage Project.

According to reliable China Aid sources and collaborated reports by at least five different mission agencies, over 100 foreigners accused of being involved in illegal religious activities in China have been expelled or deported this year between April and June. Sources inside the Chinese government informed CAA that the Chinese government launched a massive expulsion campaign of foreign Christians, encoded Typhoon No. 5, in February 2007.

Two news stories about hundreds of lesbian gangs attacking and raping young girls in schools and other public locations have prompted a backlash against the reporters by members of the homosexual community. The broadcasts by Memphis television station WPTY and Fox News host Bill O'Reilly quoted law enforcement authorities, victims, and even some gang members to document the growing number of attacks on young girls by lesbian gang members.

Thirteen years after Rwanda's 1994 genocide killed as many as one million people, France is being forced to confront evidence then-president Francois Mitterrand knew up to three years in advance of plans for the slaughter and did nothing to stop it. Because the country's leaders were more concerned with France's influence in post-colonial Africa and determined to resist the spread of "Anglo-Saxon" influences in Rwanda, they supported, armed, trained and fought with Hutu extremists who were determined to wipe out the minority Tutsis.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice. I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy .

We like to think of doctors as people committed to the Hippocratic oath to save lives, not take them - even though history records many tyrants with medical backgrounds, including Che Guevara and al-Qaida's Ayman al Zawahir ... Despite physicians who go off the rails or abuse their calling (Dr. Joseph Mengele's vivisection experiments on humans in Nazi Germany, and today's doctors in China "harvesting" organs of political prisoners for sale to those with money who need transplants) we don't like to think of medical doctors corrupting their gifts.

The cost to Britain of social breakdown is running at £102billion a year, according to the Tories. The party's review group on social policy will put a massive price on the effects crime, poor education and family break-ups have on the economy.

MORE than 250 people who claim they are “brainwashing” victims of America’s Central Intelligence Agency are set to win a multimillion-dollar legal battle for compensation … They claim that they were guinea pigs in a series of bizarre experiments to erase their memories and reprogramme them.

In 1992 I had unprecedented access to Politburo and Central Committee secret documents which have been classified, and still are even now, for 30 years. These documents show very clearly that the whole idea of turning the European common market into a federal state was agreed between the left-wing parties of Europe and Moscow as a joint project which [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev in 1988-89 called our “common European home.”

Some of the world’s most powerful nations are getting increasingly desperate for fresh water and observers are concerned that a day will come when countries will fight for the dwindling resource. Countries in the Middle East and Africa have long dealt with water shortages but now the likes of China, India and the United States are grappling with the problem.