(title quote from Amanda Hess, link to article below) So partly because I work in the women’s health world, and partly because I just find the subject fascinating, I think about sex education a fair amount. Mostly I think about how much the sex ed I had, freshman year of high school, sucked. It just sucked. I went to a public, suburban high school, and even at age fifteen I was completely dismayed at the overt religious overtones of the “education” we received in this area. Here are 3 highlights: Skit: Two volunteer students stand on a...
Continue reading...May 2010
What happens tomorrow and Friday
Tomorrow, Britons will go to their polling locations and elect a new House of Commons. This much is certain. What happens next is anybody’s guess. Currently, there is no parliament, but as required by law, there is still a Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. And, until the votes are tallied, and the “winner” is summoned to the palace, Brown will remain the No10. As according to convention, Brown, as the P.M., will be the first asked by the Queen to form a government. It is widely expected that Labour will do terribly tomorrow, and that the Tories will...
Continue reading...Aw, Americans think they're so smart
This is pretty hilarious: The survey also revealed some serious gaps in the knowledge base of Americans following foreign policy. For example, although 78 percent of respondents claimed to “closely” follow international affairs, an equal 78 percent said they had “never heard” of Ban Ki-moon when asked about him. When those surveyed were told that Ban was the secretary-general of the United Nations, 41 percent of respondents still had no idea who he was. It’s actually an interesting survey, done by the Public Opinion Strategies and Hart Research Associates on behalf of the United Nations Foundation. It...
Continue reading...The Gulf coast oil spill explained
Al Jazeera with a pretty solid explanation of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Guess the other news channels were busy or something.
Continue reading...Champions and Also-Rans
The British Parliament is holding elections on Thursday, with perennial majority Labour looking certain to lose 10 Downing St. to the Tories, or perhaps the Liberal Democrats. Today, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City — the English football teams supported by Ghost of Hemingway’s Gun and Estes, respectively, square off in Manchester to potentially decide who finishes fourth in the English Premier League, reaping the financial windfall (and prestige bump) of appearing in the Champions League, in which neither has appeared for at least a decade. Estes and I are here to guide you through both of these...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: David \”Yawny-Pants\” Brooks, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Maureen \”Refrigerator\” Dowd is off today, so today\’s has to be from Tawmy Frieds, who in his column \”No...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Good morning, everybody. Bret Michaels is out of the hospital. Now, your morning constitutional: Yesterday\’s primary results: Neither Secretary of State Elaine Marshall nor former state Senator Cal Cunningham won the North Carolina Democratic nomination for Senate outright, forcing a run-off. Former Senator Dan Coats won the Republican nomination for Senate easily in Indiana. Lt. Governor Lee Fisher won the Democratic primary for Senate in Ohio. Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American man arrested for the attempted Times Square bombing, admits role in bombing plot. BP announced Wednesday morning that they have managed to shut off one of the...
Continue reading...The Number of the Beast
You’d be remiss to not check out Richard Eskow’s new post on his blog: Revelation/Channel 13: “Biometric ID,” The Mark of the Beast, and Immigration Reform, where he does a spectacular job explaining why many evangelical/fundamentalist Christians will fear the proposal in immigration reform requiring workers to carry biometric identification by comparing it to the the “Mark of the Beast” referenced in Revelation, and why the administration may want to tread carefully on this: If Arizona’s draconian new law has put immigration back in the public consciousness, the proposal for a national “biometric ID” is about to...
Continue reading...Guns vs. Hammers
I read an article yesterday about a recent spate of violence at schools in China. In the latest attack, on Friday, a farmer attacked children at a kindergarten with a hammer before setting himself on fire. This story is horrific, as were the other two recent attacks, which took place with assailants with knives. It’s awful and scary when unhinged people (the MSNBC article says the attacks “have been blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness”) seemingly randomly turn violent. I was struck, though, with the contrast between the recent attacks in Chinese...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from David \”Yawny-Pants\” Brooks, who in his column \”The...
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