By Malcolm Moore in Rome
Failing to recycle plastic bags could find you spending eternity in Hell, the Vatican said after drawing up a list of seven deadly sins for our times.
Your view: What are the 'deadly sins' of our time?
Damian Thompson: Catholic own goal on seven deadly sins
Climate change 'will spark global conflict'
The seven, which include polluting the environment, were announced by Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, a close ally of the Pope and the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, one of the Roman Curia's main court.   
Polluting the environment by failing to recycle is one of the new seven deadly sins 
The "sins of yesteryear" - sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride - have a "rather individualistic dimension", he told the Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.
The new seven deadly, or mortal, sins are designed to make worshippers realise that their vices have an effect on others as well.
"The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one," said Mgr Girotti. "In effect, it is more important than ever to pay attention to your sins."
According to Roman Catholic doctrine, mortal sins are a "grave violation of ...   more »

By David Streitfeld
LAWTON, North Dakota: Whatever Dennis Miller decides to plant this year on his farm, the world needs. Wheat prices have doubled in the past six months. Corn is on a tear. Barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soybeans are all up sharply.
"For once, there's great reason to be optimistic," Miller said.
But the prices that have renewed Miller's faith in farming are causing pain far and wide. A tailor in Lagos named Abel Ojuku said recently that he had been forced to cut back on the bread that he and his family love.
"If you wanted to buy three loaves, now you buy one," Ojuku said.
Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics.
Many factors are contributing to the rise, but the biggest is runaway demand. In recent years, the world's developing economies have been growing at about 7 percent a year, an unusually rapid rate by historical standards.
The high growth rate means hundreds of millions of people are, for the first time, getting access to the basics of life, including better diets. ...   more »

'Day of Silence' in schools 'about coercing students to repudiate traditional morality'
By Bob Unruh
What if homosexual rights advocates staged a huge promotional event and no one came to see it? That's exactly what a coalition of organizations is proposing for April 25, this year's "Day of Silence," which is sponsored in public schools across the nation.
"It's outrageous that our neighborhood schools would allow homosexual activism to intrude into the classroom," said Buddy Smith of the American Family Association, one of a long list of organizations asking parents to keep their students home from school on that day.
"'Day of Silence' is about coercing students to repudiate traditional morality. It's time for Christian parents to draw the line – if your children will be exposed to this DOS propaganda in their school, then keep them home for the day," he said.
The "Day of Silence" promotion is intended, ostensibly, to make students "aware" of the "discrimination" suffered by homosexuals in society, by having students remain silent for the day. Such events typically are organized by a school's "Gay-Straight Alliance" group, but the event has been promoted for its previous 11 years by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education ...   more »

Watch out parents; they're after your children again, this time in California, but it could spread nationally.
According to the judge in this case: "… parents don't have a constitutional right to homeschool their children."
Remember his name: Justice H. Walter Croskey. As he spoke of the 3-0 ruling issued Feb. 28, he added that failure to comply means that parents can be criminally prosecuted.
He's talking about parents teaching their own children, in their own homes!
Then the judge helpfully explained the primary purpose of the education system: "… to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare."
This statement, from an earlier, similar ruling, emphasizes "loyalty to the state" but omits loyalty to family and the welfare of the family as a basic right of citizens.
If you ever needed more proof that government and the courts are at odds with individual freedoms, go no further than this.
It's no surprise the teachers union loves the ruling: It means full employment for teachers, more dues paid and more money for colleges teaching credentialing courses.
It also means pulling homeschooled children back into the ...   more »

Bill breathes life into Karl Marx
Karl Marx 
Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
The Soviet Union is long gone. Fidel Castro is in his dotage. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is a harmless clown. Therefore, international communism no longer is a threat, right?
How else can one explain Senate Bill 1322, which would delete language in the California law barring public school teachers from "teaching communism with the intent to indoctrinate or to inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism"?
The bill is the work of state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-the Los Angeles/Long Beach sprawl. Unlike many pieces of legislation, SB 1322 lacks a list of whereases and wherefores explaining and justifying the measure. Perhaps this is because the need for the bill is self-evident. Perhaps this is why the senator's press guy didn't return our call seeking elucidation.
Perhaps this is why Lowenthal was comfortable with deleting from state law such tired, Cold War verbiage as: "Within the boundaries of the State of California there are active disciplined communist organizations ...   more »

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By: - Robert Maginnis
A series of erupting international crises may force the presidential candidates to change the focus of their campaigns this fall. There are so many developing situations that a sort of geopolitical “perfect storm” could hit them when they would rather be talking about economic and social issues. Weather phenomena rarely combine in predictable harmony: geopolitical events are more predictable.
The forces behind a 2008 perfect storm would likely be terrorists or foreign governments creating a mass of challenges that overwhelm the candidates and place the debate squarely on how the Bush White House is dealing with the world in the president’s final months.
A major terrorist attack at home, the start of another war and the emergence of a threatening nuclear enemy are examples of geopolitical crises that could occur simultaneously. Such a confluence of events would severely stretch our government’s resources, torpedo the political rhetoric of the presidential campaigns and, thereby, expose the country to dangers that have kept us at war since 2001.
A peaceful fall campaign bodes well for the Democrats but a ...   more »

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, speaking to a local Iowa radio station, said that terrorists would dance in the streets if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is elected president -- precisely because of not only Obama's position on withdrawing US troops from Iraq, but because Obama's middle name is "Hussein," his father's Muslim roots, and his appearance -- or "optics," as King put it.
You can read about it HERE or listen to it HERE.
"I don't want to disparage anyone because of their, their race, their ethnicity, their name - whatever their religion their father, father might have been," King said just before doing just that.
"I'll just say this that when you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- and I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?
"And I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the, the radical Islamists, the, the al-Qaida, and the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11….
"It does matter, his middle name ...   more »

Reporter denied permission to hear defense of Mexican truck program
Mary Peters
The Department of Transportation today barred WND from attending a news conference in which Secretary Mary Peters defended the controversial Bush administration program allowing Mexican trucks to travel freely on U.S. roads.
Agency spokesman Duane DeBruyne, who was screening reporters at the security entrance of the federal building at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., said he did not have the authority to allow entry to WND senior staff writer Jerome Corsi, who has reported extensively on the program and attended other news conferences on the subject.
DeBruyne telephoned his supervisor, DOT spokeswoman Melissa DeLaney, who declined permission without explanation, requiring WND to leave the premises.
In a phone call to the DOT public affairs office, the agency explained it was requiring "press credentials" for admittance, and no one without them was allowed to participate.
The news conference was only for "credentialed members of the media," spokesman Bill Moseley told WND. "There's a specific credential. He did not have a media credential."
And how can a reporter obtain such a credential providing permission to attend?
"I don't know," Moseley responded.
But Corsi said he was never asked to ...   more »