Dispel the Illusion

Persecution against Christians in India has taken a turn for the worse. President and Founder of Gospel for Asia KP Yohannan is calling it the most outrageous killing and burning spree he has seen to date. "So far, more than 130 homes of our believers have been complete destroyed -- burned down. 15 churches were destroyed. One of our churches -- they bombed it. Six of our workers and believers were brutally murdered." A few were beaten up and burned alive, while others were dismembered. "It's been one of the most difficult and painful times in the history of our work," says Yohannan.

Joe Eszterhas' latest book is a shocker, but not the kind that made him rich and famous. The upcoming release from the man who penned dark thrillers such as Basic Instinct and Jagged Edge tells the story of his spiritual conversion and his newfound devotion to God and family. In Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith, to be published Sept. 2 by St. Martin's Press, Mr. Eszterhas describes how his life got turned around during the summer of 2001.

Like their religious counterparts, fundamentalist atheists tend to combine considerable arrogance with a level of intellectual naivete that can be charming in precocious children, but is merely annoying in adults. This arrogance is illustrated by their attitude toward questions which less self-confident souls might consider to be somewhat problematic - such as, for example, the ultimate nature of reality - but that fundamentalists consider no more mysterious than the design of a bottle opener.

In a bombshell announcement in the world of sports journalism, star columnist Jay Mariotti has abruptly resigned from the Chicago Sun-Times. Mariotti told the Chicago Tribune he decided to quit after covering the Olympics in Beijing because newspapers are in serious trouble, and he did not want to go down with the ship. "I'm a competitor and I get the sense this marketplace doesn't compete," he said in the Tribune story. "Everyone is hanging on for dear life at both papers. "To see what has happened in this business. … I don't want to go down with it."

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced that he has reached a settlement with Citibank after a three-year investigation into the company’s use of an illegal “account sweeping” program. Nationally, the company took more than $14 million from its customers, including $1.6 million from California residents, through the use of a computer program that wrongfully swept positive account balances from credit-card customer accounts into Citibank’s general fund, Brown said. “The company knowingly stole from its customers, mostly poor people and the recently deceased, when it designed and implemented the sweeps,” Brown said.

Fresh from having one set of charges, filed against him by Islamists, dismissed by an Alberta kangaroo court, Ezra Levant has now been served with a fresh set through the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Rob Wells, the new complainant, is the same whose charges against Fr Alphonse de Valk and Catholic Insight were dismissed recently, after costing that small magazine a bundle. Nor was that his first use of the CHRC. Details and documents may be found through Ezra Levant's website.

The current distribution of regional economic power is unlike anything that was predicted even a decade ago. The rise of the developing world, its growing share in global output and far greater share of global growth, is perhaps a quantitative but not a qualitative surprise. The qualitative surprise is this: with almost all the industrial world in or near recession, much of the momentum in the global economy is coming from countries with authoritarian governments that are pursuing economic strategies directed towards wealth accumulation and building up geopolitical strength rather than improving living standards for their populations.

Stratford police are asking for the public's help after satanic symbols were found painted on a church yesterday, a few days after a fire there. Police said they consider the attack on St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church, at 115 Cambria St., a hate crime ... The church has been vandalized before -- broken windows and spray-painting -- but never to this degree, he said. "It's something that's graphic and disturbing to the parishioners of the church," he said.

Tim Gill, a billionaire from Colorado who has funded homosexual activism throughout the United States, spoke at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) Delegates Caucus at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, outlining how he has worked to advance homosexual causes in U.S. politics. Gill endorsed undermining rising politicians critical of homosexual advocacy by targeting donations to benefit their opponents on the state level.

Security agents detained an elderly bishop of an underground Catholic church in northern China hours before the closing of the Olympic Games, a U.S.-based group said Monday. Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo, 73, of Zhengding, a city in northern Hebei province, was taken by six government officials from his cathedral on Sunday morning, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement.

New York Times Co. said Tuesday that its July revenue from continuing operations fell 10.1 percent this year as advertising revenue slipped 16.2 percent. Overall revenue dropped to $235.9 million in July from $262.3 million in July 2007, the publisher said.

Real science supports faith in an intelligent Designer behind the origin of life and the universe. It is only fair that evidence supporting intelligent design be presented to students alongside of evolutionary theory. Science cannot prove that we're here by either chance or design. Both require faith. Where will you place your faith?

Tremendous quantities of food are wasted after production - discarded in processing, transport, supermarkets and kitchens - and this wasted food is also wasted water, finds a policy brief released Thursday at World Water Week in Stockholm. The brief authored by the Stockholm International Water Institute, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the International Water Management Institute shows that the current food crisis is less a crisis of production than a crisis of waste. Tossing food away is like leaving the tap running, the authors say.