Filed under: Thinking Points
Survey: Fla. Teens Believe Drinking Bleach Will Prevent HIV
Some Teens Also Believe Mountain Dew Will Stop Pregnancy
ORLANDO, Fla. — A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.
The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.
State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida’s abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported.
They are proposing a bill that would require a more comprehensive approach, the report said.
It would still require teaching abstinence but students would also learn about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention.
It’s official (in my book) – These guys will attempt to spin anything.
Behold the good news that is the rising violence in Iraq:
So, according to Bush & co: we’re winning if casualties go down, and we’re winning if they go up. Got that? We can’t lose!
And in other Iraq news:
In the least surprising news to anyone other than (the aforementioned) FOX News viewers and Bush-Republicans:
Pentagon Makes It Official: No Link Between Saddam & Al Qaeda.
Here’s a surprise: White House Not Releasing Damaging Pentagon Report. Shocking, huh? At least the report’s executive summary is available - HERE.
The following excerpts (in italics) are from ABC News:
The report is based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion. It is also based on thousands of hours of interrogations of former top officials in Saddam’s government who are now in U.S. custody.
So, even though this was pretty obvious from the beginning (purely from a religious standpoint), a (too) large percentage of Americans bought this link wholeheartedly - thanks primarily to Bush administration officials, who have made numerous attempts to link Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda terror group in their justification for waging war against Iraq.
“What I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network,” former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations February 5, 2003.
On June 18, 2004 the Washington Post quoted President George W. Bush as saying: “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,” Bush said.
“We know he’s out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons and we know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization,” Vice President Dick Cheney said on NBC’s Meet The Press March 16, 2003.
“But the cost is far less than it will be if we get hit, for example, with a weapon that Saddam Hussein might provide to al-Qaeda, the cost to the United States of what happened on 9/11 with billions and billions of dollars and 3,000 lives. And the cost will be much greater in a future attack if the terrorists have access to the kinds of capabilities that Saddam Hussein has developed,” Cheney said.
”There is no question but that there have been interactions between the Iraqi government, Iraqi officials and Al Qaeda operatives. They have occurred over a span of some 8 or 10 years to our knowledge. There are currently Al Qaeda in Iraq,” former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a interview with Infinity CBS Radio, Nov. 14, 2002.
Sorry for the hiatus…I’ve been a little too annoyed and bitter (and busy) to post anything in any sort of impartial manner.
“Why?”; you might ask…well, take (just) some of this week’s major news:
Oh – and here’s a couple big surprises:
Filed under: Thinking Points
Hopefully this one ends up amounting to nothing more than a simple conspiracy theory (though it should be noted that the “anonymous whistleblower’s account was corroborated by at least two other participating individuals)…
A public-private partnership program on infrastructure preparedness and protection run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation allegedly has briefed its corporate members on the possibility of martial law and the use of lethal force, according to this exclusive report in the magazine The Progressive.
“One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation—and what their role might be,” writes Matthew Rothschild in the Feb. 7 report, quoting an anonymous whistleblower on the program. “‘Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,’ he says.”
(The above language is courtesy of Raw Story – emphasis was added)
Filed under: Voting
While Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination debate and compete over whose healthcare reform plan is best, and over whether or not it’s okay to talk with “America’s enemies,” and while Democrats and Republicans lob attacks over whose foreign policy is more muscular, there is a lengthening list of global catastrophes all of which are simply being ignored.
Take a look at the list over at The Smirking Chimp – it’s pretty damn powerful.
The Senate voted today to ban the CIA from using torture on suspected terrorists and the most famous POW in the Senate voted against the bill.
The “Maverick”, “who himself was tortured for years and has previously spoken out against it, voted to allow the use of torture on others” – presumably “to save his political hide and pander to a party base that despises him”. – Read the rest at Crooks and Liars.
I’ve often heard (and have very little doubt) that power corrupts, but I had hoped McCain (who has had an incredibly honorable past) might be different…I guess anything goes during a desperate grab for power.
I know most people already realize the obvious partisanship of News Corp, but there are still many who deny this – usually citing the “left-wing” slant of the Mainstream Media as their “proof”.
This has got to be the nail in the coffin for the “fair and balanced” illusion…right?
Washington, D.C.-A fact check from the National Security Network on President Bush’s State of the Union comments regarding Afghanistan show the country is still in a state of disrepair. Bush claimed that:
A nation that was once a safe haven for al Qaida is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built, and people are looking to the future with new hope.
On each point, Bush is absolutely wrong:
