Another Duh-bya Moment

OK, now can we get back to teaching facts?

US teen pregnancy and syphilis rates rose sharply during George Bush's presidency, Centres for Disease Control finds | World news | guardian.co.uk

Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush's evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US's major public health body.

Not to be too snarky, but the home of so many fundigelicalS and core Republicans rates special mention in the report:

The CDC says that southern states, where there is often the greatest emphasis on abstinence and religion, tend to have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs.

Christmas in July

Speaking for all late night comedians and snarky bloggers, oh, please, please, let it be so.

Palin-Bachmann 2012? | RonP's Blog

So what about a Palin/Bachmann dog & pony show? It would be funny if it weren't so scary or is that; it would be scary if it weren't so funny. Impossible you say? The Republican campaign clown show will be something to see.

Remeber, they'll try anything and stop at nothing and at least 46% of the voting public are willing to let them have it their way.........

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Your Inner Geek Will Love This

Computer hardware poster 1.7 by ~Sonic840 on deviantART

A Matter of Confession

Roger Ebert has an interesting essay on confessions, using the the late Secretary of Defense during Viet Nam Robert S. McNamara's comments as a starting point. I thought this paragraph was particularly astute.

Roger Ebert's Journal: Archives

He agreed to submit himself to Morris's questions for an hour. He ended by speaking for ten. He went to subjects Morris might not have thought to take him, discussed things that were, at 85, much on his mind. He was a key aide to Gen. Curtis LeMay, who directed the fire-bombing of Tokyo when more than 100,000, mostly civilians, were burned alive. After the war, he says, in one of the film's most astonishing moments, LeMay observed to him that if America had lost, they would have been tried as war criminals. What does he, McNamara, think about the bombing? By quoting LeMay's statement that might have forever gone unrecorded, I think he lets us know.

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Democratizing Human Fallacy?

An interesting speculation about the ease of access to personal, even intimate information about ourselves and how that might change social mores.

Personal Transformations in the Internet Age - Boing Boing

I wonder if as a result of pervasiveness of such information we may actually see greater social forgiveness and tolerance. After all, the more people see that even those they admire do stupid things once in a while, particularly when they are young, wouldn't our tolerance level go up also? And hasn't it happened already? The more we find out about personal indiscretions of various politicians and celebrities, the more inured the public has become, it seems. We are finding out that many of our heroes are fallible. Maybe, along with everything else, the Internet is democratizing human fallacy.

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Batshit Crazy in 140 Characters

My favorite Colorado GOPosaurus, state Senator Dave Schultheis, (R) Focus on the Family, is wracked, WRACKED I tell you, with guilt over vacationing while the economic and moral structure of the country is ruined by evil Obamatrons. I know this because he took time away from his Minnesota junket to tweet his emotional conflict.

John Ensign, Mark Sanford, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Scooter Libby, Mark Foley and Duke Cunningham nod in agreement.

Dogs Help with Wounds of War

A great story - truly a man's best friend.

'Sit! Stay! Snuggle!': An Iraq Vet Finds His Dog Tuesday - WSJ.com

Tuesday is a so-called psychiatric-service dog, a new generation of animals trained to help people whose suffering is not physical, but emotional. They are, effectively, Seeing Eye dogs for the mind.

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