And that's how it is.

[silveradept]

It's good to be the king. Say it in your best Mel Brooks Louis XIV, and then go read the article. You'll understand why.

Missing something nice to round out the coverage, this article is. 13% of female teens in an "abstinence-only" sex-ed program got pregnant. What's missing? Statistics on comparable schools where contraception is taught. Far be it from me to defend "abstinence-only" education, which I find useless, but if you're going to make the claim that changes need to be made, there should be something that says, "Only X% of female teens in schools where contraception was taught got pregnant." For all we know, that school might have the lowest pregnancy rate in the area. Always be wary of statistics - they will tell you what you want to hear.

Because it's a classic, and because Jack Chick deserves every bit of mockery ever thrown at him, we have... Dark Dungeons, the one that started most people on the path to making fun of the fundies (the ones that deserve it, of course.). There are others available at the website, too, if this one has you rolling on the floor in laughter. Or, you can take a howl at stupid quotes heard in a bookstore.

Veterans fighting the effects of depleted uranium? Again, why fight with radioactive materials? The damage is much more permanent, and the casualties on both sides are higher from the poisoning. That is, of course, if anyone admits that depleted uranium is, indeed, toxic, radioactive, and just as willing to kill friendlies as enemies.

And if you want to think of what might have been, here's a series of bloggers and columnists all trying to answer the question What if the 11 September attacks never happened? Definitely worth reading, for those of you planning on crossing dimensions. Or perhaps this is a guidebook from someone who already has...

There were some interesting replies to my views of the Kingdom Hearts universe. From those who tell me that light's not so great (the pure ones are the Princesses of Heart), to those who will embrace their darkness and their light, and find the Way to the Dawn or die trying. Someone else asked a very salient question, though - do you consider darkness to be passive or active? Turning that question over in my head, I thought that darkness has at least some passive element to it, as it flees at the onset of light, and then recovers the lost ground when the light leaves. The agents of the darkness are more active - the Heartless and the villains of the story are trying to seize control using the darkness. Even then, though, one might strictly say that the darkness, and the Heartless, its agents, are passive. The Heartless can be controlled by those who have the strength of will to do so. The darkness can be controlled by those with the will, much like the light. Both forces as passive, manipulatable, magical, directed by will alone. I guess I don't see completely where the question lies. A passive darkness and light would not necessarily make one preferable to the other, I guess. Those who could use both would be the most powerful.

Trying to consider what constitutes an active darkness. Something that would move to snuff out the light brought into its presence. In a sense, light is active, in that it tries to repel away the darkness. What comes to mind are more like the agents of the darkness moving, not the darkness itself. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery about all of this?

Comments

[lordmork.livejournal.com]

You know, it's a strange fact, but to my knowledge, not a single one of the females in my grade of 130-odd got pregnant. We were taught a strange mixture of abstinence and admittence that protection can be useful. I don't know if it was the program, (which, in my mind, skimped on the aspect of protection) or the fact that our school came from a relative wealthy area, but as things went, it seems to have worked.

Take from it what you will. The logical thing, in my mind, is to teach both abstinence and protection. Indeed, the most effective form of birth control is abstinence, but the most effective way to prevent babies when having sex is birth control. Logically, should we not teach both? Could it be that my "rather conservative but not totally so" school somehow stumbled onto the answer to this problem? Beats me!

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Hmm. So 13% of girls who don't get a real sex ed class get pregnant? Yeah, that ought to say something to the school district that perhaps their abstain only plan ISN'T working. If you Wiki "teenage pregnancy", we find out:

he United States, at 48.8 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19 in 2000, has the highest teen birth rate in the developed world. The rate of abortion among American adolescents is also high. If all pregnancies, including those which end in termination, are taken into account, then the total rate is 83.6 pregnancies per 1,000 girls. However, the trend is decreasing: in 1990, the birth rate was 61.8, and the pregnancy rate 116.9 per thousand. This decline has manifested across all racial groups, although teenagers of African-American and Hispanic descent retain a higher rate, in comparison to that of Caucasians. The Guttmacher Institute attributed about 25% of the decline to abstinence and 75% to the effective use of contraceptives. [6]

so, perhaps there is something gto be said for teaching kids how to use contraceptives! I really dislike abstinence only education plans, because they simply don't teach the students what they can use if they want to have sex. We had sex ed in 10th grade, and I don't think every single 15 yr old in my class ran out and had sex as soon as we learned how to use condoms and diaphrams, etc. Sure, there was 1 or 2 girls who were pregnant that year, but really, when I think about my entire HS (population about 1500-1800), I can only recall 4 or 5 pregnant girls. (And i was the person who knew the entire school due to being Yearbook editor). Can i find real facts to back this up? well, I'm trying. This wasn't around when I was in HS (http://www.state.nj.us/health/aids/teenpep.htm), but it's being implimented now in my HS, and I think it's a really good idea. I also don't feel they can entirely blame the school for these 65 pregnancies. I mean, where are the kids parents in all this? Are they just sitting there allowing their kids to only learn abstinence? you bet your butt if my kid's school didn't teach about safe sex I'd be making sure they had condoms and knew what to do and how to use them.

Grrr. I moved my rant over to my LJ to not clutter your post. Sorry dear.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

You're canadian, right? According to the same wiki article, the teenage pregnancy rate in Canada is only something like 20 out of every 1000. Not bad at all. Perhaps that's because of the way kids are taught in Canada.

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

The depleted uranium issue sounds remarkably like that of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation waste disposal workers, and the women who painted radioactive paint onto wrist watches. And it sounds like they're being met with the same level of concern from those responsible. Theirs is a hundred year old battle... it would be nice to see that they win this time.

Thanks for the quotes from the Book Mine. I am going to have to preserve those. :)

Have teh best

-=TK

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

The depleted uranium issue sounds remarkably like that of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation waste disposal workers, and the women who painted radioactive paint onto wrist watches. And it sounds like they're being met with the same level of concern from those responsible. Theirs is a hundred year old battle... it would be nice to see that they win this time.

Thanks for the quotes from the Book Mine. I am going to have to preserve those. :)

Light and dark? "The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."

Have teh best

-=TK

[przxqgl.livejournal.com]

if you "like" jack chick's stuff, you should also check out The Visitors and Tina Shoes... 8)

[yarha.livejournal.com]

'Abstinent like Paris Hilton' shall become my phrase for the week. As a password, it shall open all doors, as 'twere.

There are several studies, one by the WHO, showing that depleted uranium isn't *that* big of a deal. It's depleted, after all, and is not a big radiation risk. We use depleted uranium in tank rounds 'cause it's 70% denser than lead, hence a round of the same size and aerodynamic drag as a lead round has more penetration power.

Yarha, Who's Definitely Depleted

[silveradept]

The important part there, though, is that your school realized that teens were going to have sex, and so, grudgingly or no, included information on protecting oneself while having sex. Trumpeting abstinence is fine, but sticking one's head in the sand and believing that every teen will follow the abstinence model is stupid.

We should teach both - say that the only way to be totally sure is not to have sex, and then to give a thorough education on what to do to protect yourself if you choose to have sex. It's the most logical option, but because of parents who want their children to be ignorant, it's not taught.

[the-entity.livejournal.com]

Well, it's radioactive enough to pick up on a geiger counter if there's enough around (the article Silver linked mentioned the Dutch staying away from a DU-bombed site for that reason). The symptoms in that article don't sound like radiation sickness, though (might be wrong), so I'm guessing it's a chemical toxicity thing.

I don't know anything about the WHO study (don't suppose you could link?) but I gather DU's supposed to be safe as a weapon because it catches fire and disperses, and thereafter it's too dilute to cause any problems, which is probably true most of the time. But a widespread study of all soldiers wouldn't pick out the rare incidents like that described in the article, where people come across very contaminated zones and get sick afterwards - that'll just come out as a statistical outlier, and won't affect the results for the majority of soldiers who are lucky enough to avoid that problem.

(I know that one study found that DU had no ill-effects in Bosnia, but that's irrelevant if the argument's about uranium inhalation specifically. Toxic airborne particles will be a much more serious problem in the absence of rainfall to wash them away, and Bosnia has 50 times the rainfall of Iraq.)

[the-entity.livejournal.com]

(Nice avatar, by the way.)

[yarha.livejournal.com]

Linky-linky (http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2001/WHO_SDE_OEH_01.12.pdf)

"Even if present in areas in which large amounts of DU munitions were used, the possibility that significant quantities of dust and debris could have been inhaled or ingested by civilians is remote. Small intakes of DU will be passed quickly by the urine or faeces without residual effects."

It's a short report (12 pages).

Yarha, Rings Around Uranium

[yarha.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Made it myself ;) Or I stole it from other artwork fair and square.

Yarha, Liebig's Law of the Minimum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum)

[the-entity.livejournal.com]

Aha, thanks.