Dispel the Illusion

Environmentalism is a religion that is based more on political ambitions than science, the president of the Czech Republic warned Friday. Speaking at the Cato Institute, a public policy think-tank, President Vaclav Klaus said that environmentalists who clamor for policy change to combat global warming "only pretend" to be promoting environmental protection, and are actually being driven by a political agenda.

Simon Langlois, a Universite Laval sociologist, puts the conservatism of Quebec City region voters down to 25 years of trash radio ... The result is that voters in this region are turning away from the Parti Quebecois and the Quebec Liberal Party, both based in Montreal ... Mario Dumont seized on this anti-Montreal sentiment ... Dumont appeals to "angry white men" who feel threatened by the "notables" the Arthurs and Fillions target daily, he said.

Justice will prevail, and Barbara and I will celebrate with our friends, never more easily identified than in these challenging days. When nightmares pass, all things are possible. I have never been happier to be Canadian.

A provincewide syphilis outbreak, which has been linked to Alberta's booming economy, has already killed one Edmonton newborn and hospitalized eight other babies in the past two years, says a local doctor. The syphilis-infected infant, which was delivered prematurely at 6 1/2 months in October 2005 in Edmonton, died shortly after birth from severe complications related to the sexually transmitted disease, said Dr. Ameeta Singh.

Genetically modified potatoes developed by Monsanto, the multinational biotech company, have been fed to sick patients in an experiment. Rats that ate similar potatoes in the research suffered reductions in the weight of their hearts and prostate glands. Dr Michael Antoniou, reader in molecular genetics at Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine, said use of humans was "irresponsible and totally unethical, especially when already ill subjects were enrolled. These people truly were guinea pigs."

Our food is continuing to evolve from locally grown to a distant, global food supply with ingredients from countries spanning the globe. There is no inspection of imported food or ingredients and no country of origin labeling here. Do you know where your orange juice came from? It might be Brazil. Your raspberries? PerhapsMexico. Your milk products? New Zealand is possible. Your meat? Nowhere, if it's cloned.

Government officials were made aware of some problems with a version of the MMR vaccine in other countries but still introduced it in Britain in the late 1980s, newly released documents show. The MMR vaccine with the Urabe strain of mumps was first used in Britain in October 1988. It was blamed for the deaths of several children after being withdrawn by the Department of Health in September 1992.

The existence of objective moral values is evidence for God’s existence, Paul Copan, a philosopher and Christian apologist, said at a meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. “There are certain moral truths that we all know,” Copan, associate professor of philosophy and ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University, said Feb. 24. “If objective moral values exist, then it is extremely likely that a Creator exists.”

The latest book by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion,” is an attempt to shore up the faith of atheists, Oxford theologian Alister McGrath said at a meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary ... “I believe Dawkins’ book was really written to persuade atheists that their faith is still valid,” McGrath, professor of historical theology and senior research fellow at Oxford University’s Harris Manchester College, said Feb. 23.

Most Americans think culture is becoming more immoral, and they view the media -- both entertainment and news - as prime culprits, according to a new survey ... "Americans who care about the nation's moral condition should insist that the media strive to more fairly represent all views, including those of the orthodox," the report stated.

Pope Benedict called on the media on Friday to promote family values and criticized the Internet and television's often "destructive" influence on young people ... The Pope also said the media had "a pervasive role in shaping culture" and that power was moving away from print to electronic media which were increasingly controlled by "a few multinational conglomerates whose influence crosses all social and cultural boundaries."

The left-wing Daily Kos blog has been driving a campaign to have companies pull ads from Ann Coulter's website after the conservative author used a slur in a recent speech, but leftist websites - including Daily Kos - have themselves used the offending word in the past. Daily Kos postings have included the word "faggot" at least three times in recent years, as have other liberal blogs - without apology, and without generating a furor.

Violent crime rose by double-digit percentages in cities across the country over the last two years, reversing the declines of the mid-to-late 1990s, according to a new report by a prominent national law enforcement association. While overall crime has been declining nationwide, police officials have been warning of a rise in murder, robbery and gun assaults since late 2005, particularly in midsize cities and the Midwest. Now, they say, two years of data indicates that the spike is more than an aberration.

Women in Darfur continue to be subjected to rape by all sides in the brutal conflict in the western Sudanese region, the UN human rights chief said yesterday - International Women's Day. Louise Arbour said she has about 75 human rights officers monitoring abuses in Darfur, and that many women were being attacked as soon they ventured out of refugee camps to carry out essential chores.

Comedy Central consummated its season of "the Sarah Silverman Program" last night by featuring the title character having sex with God, and then trying to brush him off after a night of lovemaking. Silverman was shown in bed with an amorous Almighty, whom she referred to as "Black God," portrayed by actor Tucker Smallwood, a former NBC television director who also served in the Army in Vietnam.

Discovery Channel's controversial James Cameron-produced documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" drew the largest audience for the network in more than a year on Sunday night, but the network has taken several recent steps to downplay the project. Departing from normal procedures, the cable network didn't tout its big ratings win. The network also scheduled a last-minute special that harshly criticized its own documentary, and has yanked a planned repeat of "Tomb."

A baby born at 22 weeks after surviving an abortion attempt is fighting for its life in an Italian hospital. Italian news service ANSA said the mother decided to abort the fetus after it was mistakenly diagnosed with a birth defect. The baby survived the abortion attempt but subsequently suffered a brain hemorrhage. Doctors say the child is not expected to survive.

An unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were mistakenly struck without their edge inscriptions, including "In God We Trust," and made it past inspectors and into circulation, the U.S. Mint said Wednesday.

China has unveiled a landmark law that will boost the protection of private property rights. This is the first piece of legislation in the Communist country to cover an individual's right to own assets.

A team of experts in biblical archeology and research who have spent years producing 90 major network television documentaries on discoveries related to biblical accounts and antiquities are challenging claims of a Hollywood documentary that the Jesus Christ of the Bible married a woman mentioned in New Testament accounts, that the two had a child, and that the family’s remains were found in a burial cave site in Israel.

The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship (LCF) has expressed alarm following a recent report on the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs) which indicated that Christian schools may no longer be allowed to teach children that the Christian view on human sexuality is "objectively true."

Monsanto and the USDA have patents that give them monopoly control for 20 years over GE technology ... There are 1.4 billion indigenous people and peasant farmers whose whole livelihood revolves around selecting and saving seed for next year’s crop planting. They select and adapt local varieties to their unique needs. If Terminator were commercialised their livelihoods would be threatened for no other purpose than to transfer ownership and control of our publicly owned food crops to GE crop companies.

A Calgary business is under fire for helping North Americans who need new organs acquire livers and lungs from China, with critics claiming the country executes prisoners to supply a burgeoning transplant industry.

Who’d have thought it? The Cameroons have gone back to basics — and this time they might get it right. Marriage — the institution that this government has done its level best to strangle and bury in quicklime ten feet down — has shot back onto the political agenda.

Transgendered Ontarians want protection against discrimination spelled out for them more clearly in the provincial human rights code. Rosalyn Forrester of the Trans Health Lobby Group and Canadian Transsexuals Fight for Rights said members of the transgendered community are not adequately protected under the existing code.

The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to be approved for commercial production. The laboratory-created rice produces some of the human proteins found in breast milk and saliva.

You've heard of green cars, green tourism and green weddings. Now Canadians should ready themselves for green sex. For those who like to make love to the soundtrack of the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Greenpeace has released a list of strategies for "getting it on for the good of the planet," suggesting "you can be a bomb in bed without nuking the planet."

For months it's been a well-kept secret. But now Warren Township Schools confirm a disturbing case of sex in the classroom. The illicit activity has parents concerned and a district at a loss for words. Shop class gives students a chance to learn outside of the book. But at Warren Township's Raymond Park Middle School, two students engaged in illicit acts in view of goggled eyes.

Two Mississauga men who say they were roughed up after taping police at a wild booze party last summer have filed a $12-million lawsuit against Peel Police Chief Mike Metcalf and 26 officers ... Richard Cimpoesu, 24, and Orlando Canizalez, 21, say they were chased, assaulted, robbed and threatened by several officers after they were spotted taping an outdoor beer bash less than a kilometre from 11 Division in the early hours of Aug. 28, 2006. The video, which was later turned over to police, featured images of some officers howling like wolves. The lawsuit claims several officers watched as their fellow officers detained and assaulted the young men. It also alleges the men were threatened with further physical harm if they told anyone what had happened.

Today's college students are more self-centred than their predecessors, according to a new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and society in general ... Researchers say scores have risen steadily since 1982 when the first of some 16,475 college students across the United States completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI).

In “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both” (Riverhead), Ms. Sessions Stepp, a Washington Post reporter, writes about how smart, ambitious young women do emotional damage to themselves by getting physical — making out to having sex — with men they are not dating or may have met for the first time.

I once believed that parliamentarians were legislators, democratically elected. I believed that judges were appointed to interpret and administer the law. But the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has given judges the power to change the laws and the Constitution, consistently removing this power from Parliament.

Half of all new HIV transmissions occur when people are unlikely to know they carry the virus and in some cases, wouldn't test positive for it because they are so newly infected, a Canadian study says ... It raises troubling questions about how to deal with the problem: how can those at high risk be encouraged to come forward and undergo frequent, repeated tests when no one knows who they are? And should those at very high risk of contracting the disease be put on anti-retroviral therapy as a preventive measure?

For the past eighteen years he has frozen for his convictions, been showered and pelted for them, been scorched and been ridiculed. But, without giving in or giving up. Today, he is a fixture on the side of the wide stone walkway which leads from the Centennial flame to the steps up to Centre Block on Parliament Hill. Beside Rev. Tony Van Hee, passersby will usually see gory pictres of aborted fetuses, which may want them to look away but which Tony hopes will drive home his argument that our national abortion laws are, to him, a sin. Some call the lone protestor a kook while others view him as heroic.

The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous — for people. The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defense against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has ever been approved in the United States for use in animals.

Bono went on to say that the faith-based communities are critical in overturning these problems. "The church is very important," he said. "In Africa, the church was at the forefront of educating the public. It's hard for the church to talk about sexuality, but it's critical." The black congregations attending supported the call.

A group of women from across Canada who know the pain and experience of abortion first hand, are speaking out at the UN this week. Melony, Lorraine, Evelyn, Maria and Denise, each with their own devastating story and negative impact abortion has had on their lives and bodies. They are participating in a workshop at the United Nations' 51st Conference on the Status of Women (CSW) in NY, on March 6th, 2007.

Americans worried about new "hate crime" legislation that could be used to make criminals of those whose religious faith doesn't endorse homosexuality could be facing a two-pronged attack, according to groups that monitor those developments. The newest threat is being prepared by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, whose work is being called "The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007," according to the Rev. Ted Pike, of the National Prayer Network.

Talk radio and the Internet have broken the information monopoly of the big three networks and major newspapers, which conservatives have long contended lean to the left. Even more, these mediums increasingly affect what the mainstream media report on.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who says he prays daily and has a personal relationship with God, rejects the notion that America is "a Christian nation. There's a lot of America that's Christian. I would not describe us, though, on the whole, as a Christian nation," he told the Web site Beliefnet. "I guess the word 'Christian' is what bothers me, even though I'm a Christian."

Long considered the modern-day equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah, Hollywood is increasingly showing its family-friendly side, churning out an unprecedented number of films and television shows with uplifting and redemptive themes. In the three years since Mel Gibson released "The Passion of the Christ," hundreds of films with Judeo-Christian, spiritual and family-friendly themes have hit the screen - from "The Nativity Story" to "Amazing Grace."

Judge Wachowich backed up remarks made two weeks ago by Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin complaining that the Conservatives' appointment of 16 members (out of 84 voting members) from among their party ranks had placed the administration of justice "in peril." Most of the 36 Liberal appointees had been Liberals. Yet that never seemed to strike the judges or legal community as potentially perilous. Nor did the fact that nearly two-thirds of the judges the Liberals appointed - not merely no-name committee members, but actual judges - were Liberal supporters.

Christians, Buddhists and others in China who wish to practice their personal beliefs have two choices: join one of five "patriotic" state-sanctioned churches and endure the oversight of atheistic communist leaders, or go underground and practice in secret, risking arrest, harassment, torture and detention in a forced-labor camp. For some Chinese, the first choice is not even an option. China's communist regime controls what is taught, who is qualified to be clergy, and outlaws religious instruction to children under 18.

Toronto's public school board will consider plans today to cut more than 100 education assistants, lunchroom supervisors and vice-principals in the face of declining student enrolment ... Don Higgins, the board's executive superintendent of business services, said the board faces financial challenges, despite balancing its books. Indeed, many cuts were deferred at the board's last budget meeting.

Some women facing unplanned pregnancies end up terminating the pregnancy and go on to lead lives with no regrets. That's your choice and you should be legally allowed to make it. But one look at Seth in his momma's arms and you know what the better choice is. Please consider giving the gift of life - and parenthood.

China will boost military spending by 17.8 per cent this year, a spokesman for the national legislature said Sunday, continuing more than a decade of double-digit annual increases. The 2007 budget marks an increase of $6.84 billion US over last year. With its economy booming, China has announced double-digit annual increases in military spending every year since the early 1990s.

THE hunter has become the hunted. Michael Moore, the celebrated left-wing filmmaker, has become the unwilling subject of a new documentary that raises damaging questions about the credibility of his work. The director and star of successful documentaries such as Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore has repeatedly been accused by his right-wing enemies of distorting or manipulating the material in his films.

Rudy Giuliani's shaky family life is being hit with new tremors, as his son Andrew hit the interview circuit confirming that he is estranged from his father - and that the root of the tension is Giuliani's current wife, Judith. "There's obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife," Andrew Giuliani, 21, told The New York Times.

Body parts from China intended for a US laboratory have been mistakenly sent to a Michigan home by a delivery firm. The recipient, in Cascade near Grand Rapids, said her husband opened two packages - one containing a liver, the other a partial human head.

CHILDREN aged 11 to 16 are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a secret database, internal Whitehall documents reveal. The leaked Home Office plans show that the mass fingerprinting will start in 2010, with a batch of 295,000 youngsters who apply for passports.