Although national teen-pregnancy rates are on the decline, the disparities between states are often dramatic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Wednesday.
[...] In Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, for instance, 2008 birth rates were less than 25 per 1,000 teens aged 15 to 19, CDC found. In the same year, Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas all had rates topping 60 per 1,000 teens.Mississippi had the country's highest rate (65.7), CDC says, while New Hampshire had the lowest (19.8).
Leslie Kantor, national education director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the report "makes it crystal clear that the teen birthrate is lower in states that provide students with comprehensive, evidence-based sex education."
A recent report from the Guttmacher Institute, a women's reproductive health group, bolsters those claims. All five states with the highest teen birth rates have adopted policies requiring that abstinence be stressed when taught as part of sex education, HIV education or both, the group found. Only one of the five states (New Mexico) mandates that sex education be a part of students' curriculum.
Of the four states with the lowest teen birth rates, none requires that abstinence be stressed to students, according to Guttmacher.
There is a serious price to pay for ignorance and yet teabaggers and friends hope for a return to the very time when ignorance of this sort was not only applauded but was promoted by the White House itself.
"Teen pregnancy is a serious national problem, and we need to use the best science of what works to address it," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at the time.
Kantor says the focus on evidence-based reproductive health education marks "a radical change from the Bush administration, which favored and funded abstinence-only sex education."
At their rallies, they say, "I want my country back," which means nothing.
They say, "We believe in freedom and the Constitution," implying what - that we don't?
They say, "We want lower taxes," but Obama gave them that and they don't even know it.
They also want smaller government and they want the government to continue to borrow
money from China so we can further enrich the super-rich - which makes no sense at all.
Their glue is the hope they can get rid of that NitWH - but they can't say that on TV.
the best our limp Democrats can do is a lame-ass game of patty-cake.
Sarah Palin fans need "The Constitution for Dummies"......
..... And so does Palin, if she thinks Juan Williams' firing is a "First Amendment violation". Fucking idiot.
Every time I hear a creationist claim that evolution is a myth, I shake my head and smile. And that's because I know only too well that the individual has not taken the time to do their due diligence and actually investigate what it is that evolution is. And how would I know this? Well because they spout off the same nonsense that came out of Glenn Beck's mouth yesterday when he said he believes that it is "ridiculous" to believe that "we came from monkeys."
"I haven't seen a half-monkey, half-person yet."
Not content with coming off as a moron with that last line, Beck goes on to say:
They have to force it down your throat. When anyone has to force it, it's a problem. You didn't have to force that the world was round. You didn't have to.
Truth is truth. You don't have to force the truth. You just keep adding evidence and evidence and evidence and evidence until it becomes self-evident.
Wow. It's hard to imagine that anyone could pack so much crap into a couple of sentences. But then again, we're talking Beck here, the ultimate bullshit/idiot-meister. I'm not going to bother trying to refute nonsense of this sort. I've wasted too many hours of my life debating people like Beck – simpletons who would rather hang on to childish fairy tales then actually do the study necessary to allow for intelligent debate. But if you do care, MediaMatters puts in the attempt here.
I'll just say for the hundredth time that evolution does not speak of the existence of god or gods or for that matter, the beginnings of life. It says only that the diversity of life we see around us has come about in the most beautiful and elegant of ways – evolution. It is the individual's choice to study and know or remain clouded in ignorance. What is not an option though, is forcing their self-imposed ignorance down the throat of schoolchildren.
by digby
Just remember, the constitution was meant to protect Christian conservatives from people they disagree with. Therefore, they are justified in doing whatever it takes to get their way:
Then he said that they need to pass constitutional amendments preventing the court from taking international law into account. (Presumably, this would also require polygraphs to determine if the justices are taking it into account in their minds ...)CONSTITUENT: Keith, I have a question concerning the courts. It seems that the courts are having the final say on these matters, the Supreme Court. But isn't it the Congress that can ultimately override the Supreme Court, the checks and balances?
ROTHFUS: Yeah, there are different checks and balances you can do. Congress's ultimate weapon is funding. If the Supreme Court rules you have to do something, we'll just take away funding for it.
These people simply don't believe in democracy and they refuse to accept that they have to share the governance of the country with people they don't agree with.
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LATEST: The package that was sent to [Rep. Raul] Grijalva's office today was covered with swastikas and the white powder has been CONFIRMED to be a toxic substance!I wonder if the media will call it a "prank"?
This should now be classified as an official TERRORIST attack, just like these types of events immediately after 9/11 were.
...
made Juan Williams nervous, or was it,
perhaps, something else?
If you think that those companies give a flying fuck about you, you are sadly mistaken. They don't care if your health car stinks, if the environment is poisoned or if the climate warms past a tipping point, only so long as their opportunity to rake in boatloads of cash today is not hindered in the slightest.
When your reviewer first saw the title, he expected a comic murder mystery set in an Assembly of God confirmation class, with comical down-home dialogue along the lines of, "Why ain't Pastor Slaughter got a head no more? Looks like the Lord needs tah provide uh private detective!" Alas for the universe, it turns out The Confirmation is a roman-à-clef about Latinos on the Supreme Court and Iranian nukes. And Somali pirates. And sinister ships carrying Iraqi "yellow cake" across the sea. And feminists being all angry about some Catholic Mexican on the Supreme Court. And a horny Democratic senator who regularly mounts young interns and staffers. And a hot leader of Israel's Likud Party. All of human life, basically.
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