By Aaron Klein
TEL AVIV – European officials have been claiming to Syrian leaders the past few weeks Israel is preparing for a military confrontation with Damascus, in some cases providing Syria with inaccurate information, WND has learned. A top source in Syrian President Bashar Assad's Baath party told WND European leaders visiting Damascus in recent weeks delivered messages stating Israel was taking measures in advance of a large-scale conflict with Syria, including updating battle plans, training reservist soldiers and preparing the home front for missile attacks.
One senior European Union official told Assad the Israeli government instructed its major hospitals not to allow staff to take vacation time during the summer months for fear a conflict will break out during that period, according to the Baath party source. Israeli security officials and spokesmen for several major Israeli hospitals denied the claim. The European officials advised Assad to engage in dialogue with the Jewish state and the U.S. leading to a full Israeli withdrawal of the Golan Heights, the Baath official said. The Golan is strategic mountainous territory looking down on Israeli population centers twice used by Syria to mount ground invasions into Israel. Israel this week engaged in a ...   more »

John FischerHe was a small man—barely five feet in his knickers, knee socks, and ballooning white shirts. For two weeks, first as a freshman and then again as a senior, I sat in my assigned seat at Wheaton College's chapel and heard him cry. He was the evangelical conscience at the end of the 20th century, weeping over a world that most of his peers dismissed as not worth saving, except to rescue a few souls in the doomed planet's waning hours. While Hal Lindsey was disseminating an exit strategy in The Late Great Planet Earth, Francis Schaeffer was trying to understand and care for people still trapped on the planet in The God Who Is There.Francis Schaeffer was hard to listen to. His voice grated. It was a high-pitched scream that, when mixed with his eastern Pennsylvania accent, sounded something like Elmer Fudd on speed. As freshmen, unfamiliar with the thought and works of modern man, we thought it was funny. As seniors, it wasn't funny any more. After we had studied Kant, Hegel, Sartre, and Camus, the voice sounded more like an existential shriek. If Edvard Munch's The Scream had a voice, it would have sounded like Francis ...   more »

By DAVID ROYSE
The good scenario is this: a hit-and-run victim arrives unconscious and without ID at a hospital, where a simple check finds a microchip implanted in his arm. Immediately, doctors know his identity, his blood type and any drug allergies.It's already happening for hundreds of patients who have chosen to have their medical records stored on a microchip implanted in their arms.But Sen. Bill Posey is worried about the bad scenario: A hospital, the military, some rogue government agent perhaps, putting a chip in someone against his will. Why it might happen, Posey's not sure. But the technology exists, and he doesn't want to chance it."You shouldn't have these chips in people without their consent," said Posey, who is sponsoring a bill moving in the Legislature to prohibit anyone from implanting a microchip in someone without that person's approval."No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist," said Posey, R-Rockledge. "But the reality is chips exist, and if they were implanted without your knowledge or consent it would be a severe violation of your privacy."The bill (SB 2220) won unanimous approval Wednesday from the Senate Health Regulation Committee, although several committee members expressed doubts about whether the measure is needed."Is there ...   more »

By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.comARLINGTON, Va.--A senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security official on Wednesday said he finds privacy concerns prompted by the proposed Real ID regime puzzling. Stewart Baker, the department's assistant secretary for policy, said a forthcoming system of uniform national identification cards will not put more personal information into the hands of motor vehicle administrators or result in a massive centralized database that's more susceptible to hackers. In fact, Baker said, the controversial law will improve Americans' privacy. "You can never foresee the future, but every indication is that Real ID is actually going to make it less easy for people to engage in identity theft," Baker told the Homeland Security Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee at its quarterly public meeting here. Real ID has been a target of criticism since Congress enacted it three years ago as part of an "emergency" Iraq spending bill. Although Homeland Security has tried to defuse criticism by extending deadlines, the law still requires states to reconfigure their drivers licenses and share data. If they don't agree to comply by this October, their citizens won't be able to use their driver's licenses to board planes or enter federal ...   more »