Shaun Kenney

Via NPR, we see the latest version of media-induced panic. Namely, that movies such as Juno and other young and pregnant celebrities are driving up the teen pregnancy rate

:

Jane Brown, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says the Juno effect is real.

Brown runs the Teen Media Project, which recently completed a study into the images seen by girls between the ages of 12 and 14. The research showed that kids who had “heavier sexual media diets” became more than twice as likely to become sexually active by the age of 16.

Part of that stems from teens’ natural curiousity about sex. Teens are often seen browsing through web pages like tubev.sex, which often comes as a result of their sexual curiosity. Kids who are more interested in it seek information from a variety of sources, Brown says, including movies like Juno. “In the context of parents still not comfortable talking with their children about sex, with schools talking only about abstinence until marriage and with religion saying it’s still a sin, the media have become very powerful sex educators,” she argues. With that being said, it’s hard to find a teen that hasn’t stumbled across a site like https://www.youngsexer.com/ and used it to feed their curiosity and desires, and that’s unlikely to stop any time soon.

Brown says teen pregnancy rates had been falling

, but she worries that the numbers are again on the rise. She says the generation of girls raised in abstinence-only education programs may not know as much about contraception as kids used to know. Meanwhile, images of unwed mothers have gone mainstream.

So let me get this straight. Teen pregnancy rates have been falling, statistics are backing this up, and instead of attributing this to a shift away from contraception-based sexual education… we blame abstinence-only education and movies such as Juno? Well if it’s abstinence that’s working, we may as well get all our young boys to visit lockthecock, or would that create a generation of sexually starved and inexperienced adults?

To be perfectly blunt, it’s not the government’s responsibility to teach my kids anything about sexual mores. Still, a line of argumentation that treats the symptoms (teen pregnancies) without addressing the root causes (sexually active 13-19 year olds) then band-aiding a solution by saying 95% effective contraception solves the problem… is missing the point. I’d rather them feed their sexual curiosity using sites like https://www.pornv.xxx/ instead of doing it themselves and potentially becoming young parents without consideration of the consequences.

Gatorade paid for this, though I wonder whether I would have gotten the point if every blog in the universe wasn’t screaming how Gatorade did indeed pay for the ad.

New-ish blog from Caroline County native Timothy Watson entitled I’m Surrounded By Idiots.

More than happy to up bloggers from my old stomping grounds!

DAMN.

It has long been known that Mr Clinton is angry at the way his own reputation was tarnished during the primary battle when several of his comments were interpreted as racist.

But his lingering fury has shocked his friends. The Democrat told the Telegraph: “He’s been angry for a while. But everyone thought he would get over it. He hasn’t. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who he’s been in contact with and he is mad as hell.

“He’s saying he’s not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support.

…

The party strategist (unsourced), who was allied to one of the early rivals to Mr Obama and the former First Lady, said Mr Clinton was “very unhopeful” about the nominee’s prospects in November.

“Bill Clinton knows the party will unite behind Obama, but he is telling people he doesn’t believe Obama can win round voting groups, especially working-class whites, in the swing states,” the strategist said.

“He just doesn’t think Obama will be able to connect with the voters he needs.”

That is indeed sour news for the Democrats, and the telltales of internal fracturing amongst Democratic leadership aren’t unexpected. Of course, most of this is hullabaloo… the Dems will unite at the last minute, as both major parties tend to do. It’s bandwagon psychology, after all.

Charlie Fugate over at Good Sense scores an interview with the campaign spokesperson for LP nominee Bob Barr.

Jim Bowden reveals his thoughts on the second coming of HB 3202:

HB 6055 puts billions of dollars in the hands of the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) The con the Republican bill HB 6055 is running skips putting the money in the Un-Constitutional Hampton Roads Transit Authority but shoves it at the MPO. The MPO, the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, and the Hampton Roads Transit Authority are the same people. They meet at the same time. The Republican shell game moves the new, higher taxes to the State Treasury in Richmond (as our Constitution requires) which dumps the money in a new holding account (professional thieves would use an off-shore bank), which sends the money to the MPO.

The MPO then manages the regional transportation projects for Hampton Roads/Tidewater. Unfortunately, the HR MPO has been cited as one of the worst functioning (meaning operating contrary to public law) MPOs in the Nation. The MPO is made up of appointed politicians representing the cities and counties and 4 big project advocacy representatives. HB 6055 adds more politicians.

These appointed officials will spend more than $30b. There is no oversight. No checks and balances. No separation of powers among the same body raising tolls, taking tolls, and spending tolls. That is taxation without representation – again.

The angst is palpable, without question.

RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick revokes his promise not to run for re-election to the House of Delegates in 2009, as former Senator Brandon Bell opines:

I’ve got some friendly, albeit unsolicited advice for Jeff. Pick one. If you want to be Chairman, great. Announce you’re not running for re-election and, if there is interest, have your wife begin her campaign. Then focus on the job of being Chairman. If you want to stay in the House, that’s fine too. You’ve got the best shot at holding the seat. But resign as Chairman. You cannot do both effectively. This is already fodder for the Dems, who no doubt look forward to running someone against you to keep you pinned down and ineffective as Chairman. I can almost hear Chairman Dickie laughing all the way from Vinton.

Apart from the promise-breaking, Bell brings up several excellent points.

With the exception of a handful of appointments, I have been largely disappointed with the replacements (and non-Virginians) at RPV. Fundraising is going to be extremely difficult as Frederick inevitably is forced to defend his seat — with or without him running in the race — while simultaneously doing all the work Virginia Republicans expect from an active chairman.

Having been so close to the throne, I can tell you it ain’t gonna happen unless something gives. All this comes in the wake of Hager’s long-awaited swan-song, via e-mail today:

While we did not win this time, I am confident that a great deal of good came out of our efforts. We left our Party with a sound balance sheet and out of debt. We left our party with plans in place to grow the membership. Most of all, we left our Party with a greater sense of identity. It is this identity as the Party of low taxes, strong defense, and individual liberty that will move our Republican Party forward.

Hager rings 100% true. Now some of this is in defense of the Frederick e-mail fundraising letter that was issued just before special session started — thankfully, Hager does not trade blows with Frederick here. But he does leave one instruction clear to his successor: Execute the Plan.

Whether there is anything left after the housecleaning at RPV is yet to be seen. But there is some part of me that wonders: Virginia Republicans are heavily fractured. Conservatives vs. moderates. Marshall conservatives vs. Gilmore conservatives. State Central vs. the RPV Chairman. NOVA vs. ROVA. Western Virginia vs. Eastern Virginia. The list continues ad infinitum.

Here’s a real kicker: Of all the changes at RPV, not a single Marshall insider was put on staff… Frederick has to know his seat is owed, not earned.

Add to it the revisitation of HB 3202 and the flight of all the heavy-hitting fundraisers from RPV, and one really has to wonder whether “the Democrats are worse” is really all we have left to fight with intellectually.

If so, we are in sorry shape.

NYT says you probably could… well, if you had air and water and the appropriate air pressure, perhaps.

…of course, when you read the article, it talks about the possibility of there maybe being no ice at the North Pole this summer:

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by hugeswathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

“Seasoned” polar scientists… what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Then there’s the graphs which only show the average melting sea ice from 1979 to 2000. Now if anyone would like to dig up the statistics from the 1970’s when global cooling was all the rage, I’d be interested in seeing those numbers stacked on as well… an a year-by-year analysis rather than something grouped together to prove a point.

house of 1000 corpses divx

Until the quackery can be removed from the science, my patience grows thin with environmentalists projecting their hypothesis onto otherwise scientific data.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”

“The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

 — Thomas Jefferson, to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin