1) Obama was on the Daily Show last night. Summaryof the discussion last night below.
2) Saturn's tag line for their new SUV is "Spending money like it's going out of style... is out of style. Rethink the American Car" I thought that was great!!! Hopefully people are turning around.
3) If you're not watching God's Warrior's, a special on CNN, you're missing a great program. The 90 minutes goes by so fast, CNN was smart to put the written transcripts of the entire series online. You can find it here:
Tuesday's Special on Judaism: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/21/cp.01.html
Wedesday's Special on Muslims: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/22/cp.01.html
Before the program, I ahd no idea who Syed Qutb was. He inspired the likes of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenant, Al-Zawahiri. Qutb's works laid the foundation for the modern jihad movement.
Obama on the Daily Show
Obama sees insanity in presidential run
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hey, Barack Obama, just how insane is the process of running for president? "Every day it reveals itself in new ways," Obama told host Jon Stewart Wednesday night on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." "I think that's part of what people are looking at our campaign to see, just some normalcy and some common sense," he said. The Illinois senator offered the recent Sunday televised Democratic debate in Iowa as an example.
"It's always a shock to the system when Sunday morning you wake up and you're face to face with Mike Gravel" — the crusty former Alaska senator in a long-shot bid for the nomination. Amid laughter, Obama continued: "So we're preparing and one of my staff said, 'The thing you've got to understand is, this isn't on the level.' And I think that really strikes to what people are frustrated with in politics, is that so much of what we talk about, so much of what we say, it's not true, people know it's not true, all the insiders understand that we're just game-playing — and in the meantime you've got these hugely serious problems, which are true."
Obama suggested that presidential candidates who have been governors have an advantage over those who have been in the Senate, which he described as "paralyzed" and "designed for you to take bad votes." "A governor is more likely to set the terms of the debate," he said. "They can give a speech, they can say, 'This is my initiative, this is my proposal. I won't sign it unless I agree with it.' Dealing with senators, you end up, you know, having to actually vote on stuff that has no relevance whatsoever but can be used later on to attack you." Asked if he admired any of the Republican candidates, Obama offered faint praise: "Yeah, I think some of these folks are decent people." Obama cited only former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee by name. Then he criticized the GOP field for "outbidding each other" while arguing that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be expanded rather than closed.
"That kind of stuff, I think, is not serving the Republican Party well and is not going to serve the country well," he said. Noting that Obama has been criticized for lacking experience, Stewart asked, "Have you thought about running a smaller country first?" Obama smiled and said, "You know, what I did think about though was invading a smaller country …" He suggested the island nation of Grenada.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
A Man Who Wants SUVs to Get More R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Sunday, July 22, 2007; D01
Ron DeFore is the spokesman for SUV Owners of America, a consumer group funded by the auto industry. Noble slogan: "Standing up for SUV, pickup and van owners of America." He is also a founding partner of Strat@comm, a public relations firm whose clients have included Chrysler and Ford.
With two bills circulating in Congress that would raise fuel economy standards (a stringent plan approved by the Senate and a less aggressive one introduced June 27 in the House), we decided to ask DeFore for his thoughts on hybrids, human nature and how SUV owners don't understand the impending threat on their way of life.
-- Monica Hesse
Have you ever seen "Thank You for Smoking," about the loathed Mod Squad of spokesmen from the tobacco, alcohol and firearms industries?
I've joked about that to people. But the big difference is that the main character in that movie is defending a product that is known to kill you if used exactly as directed. SUVs don't kill people if used as directed.
So you've never had anyone egg your house?
No.
Key your car?
No.
Ever have any trouble sleeping at night?
Only out of the frustration that so many people and policymakers are not looking at the big picture.
Which is?
For millions of buyers, SUVs are not a fashion statement. People buy them for four-wheel drive, for towing capacity. There are 20 million things in this country that need to be towed.
What are some of the unique challenges your group faces?
A lot of people don't believe that their SUV or pickup is in danger, so a big part of our challenge is to get the word out.
So the SUV owners you are trying to help don't realize that they need your help?
Exactly. They don't have time to think about it. Environmental groups can somehow get people to volunteer their time. We had a booth at a big RV show up in Oregon and had so many people crowding around that the guys in the booth next to us wanted to know what we were giving away. . . . But will those people go back and write letters? No! They're busy. They're having fun with their lifestyle and they don't think the government would dream of taking their utility away. That's the problem with this issue and we've never been able to pinpoint why.
Well, on your Web site,www.suvoa.com, some SUV owners seem a little self-absorbed. One person writes that he isgrateful for his SUVbecause when he fell asleep at the wheel and hit four other cars, he was able to walk away without a scratch. C'mon now.
I think there's a lot of human nature in that story. When people go to buy a motor vehicle, they're looking at safety, at crash test ratings. They want to know how it's protecting them and their family. We can't regulate human behavior. If safety is your number one priority, SUVs have a lower fatality rate than passenger cars.
A lower fatality rate for people in the SUV. What about drivers in smaller cars?
That's true, because you can't repeal the laws of physics. But there has always been a difference in the sizes of vehicles in our fleet. Should people who prefer smaller vehicles have the right to regulate what the rest of us drive? Ask this question: Would we have fewer fatalities if everyone drove compact cars, or if everyone drove SUVs? The answer is SUVs. The more metal you have, the more crash protection you have.
If everyone drove SUVs, we might eventually have to worry about deaths other than car crash fatalities.
Environmentalists who want to reduce the safety of vehicles say they are doing it for the health of the human race. But people dying on the road has to do with the health of the human race. You might believe in [global warming] 110 percent, but it's still theoretical. The known deaths of car accidents are just as important as theoretical deaths.
How do you feel about the recent CAFE [fuel economy] standard bills introduced in Congress?
It should not be the position of the government to decide what we can or cannot drive. The real solution is a world in which people can have their big honkin' SUVs and have all the power they want, but . . . not running on petroleum. . . . There are a limited number of smart people working at [car] companies. If we pass a really stringent CAFE standard, a lot of those smart people have to put their efforts into gasoline instead of finding other solutions.
What kind of car do you drive?
Lately [with the price of gas] I've mostly been driving my motorcycle. I'm more fuel-efficient than drivers of hybrid cars.
Ron DeFore is the spokesman for SUV Owners of America, a consumer group funded by the auto industry. Noble slogan: "Standing up for SUV, pickup and van owners of America." He is also a founding partner of Strat@comm, a public relations firm whose clients have included Chrysler and Ford.
With two bills circulating in Congress that would raise fuel economy standards (a stringent plan approved by the Senate and a less aggressive one introduced June 27 in the House), we decided to ask DeFore for his thoughts on hybrids, human nature and how SUV owners don't understand the impending threat on their way of life.
-- Monica Hesse
Have you ever seen "Thank You for Smoking," about the loathed Mod Squad of spokesmen from the tobacco, alcohol and firearms industries?
I've joked about that to people. But the big difference is that the main character in that movie is defending a product that is known to kill you if used exactly as directed. SUVs don't kill people if used as directed.
So you've never had anyone egg your house?
No.
Key your car?
No.
Ever have any trouble sleeping at night?
Only out of the frustration that so many people and policymakers are not looking at the big picture.
Which is?
For millions of buyers, SUVs are not a fashion statement. People buy them for four-wheel drive, for towing capacity. There are 20 million things in this country that need to be towed.
What are some of the unique challenges your group faces?
A lot of people don't believe that their SUV or pickup is in danger, so a big part of our challenge is to get the word out.
So the SUV owners you are trying to help don't realize that they need your help?
Exactly. They don't have time to think about it. Environmental groups can somehow get people to volunteer their time. We had a booth at a big RV show up in Oregon and had so many people crowding around that the guys in the booth next to us wanted to know what we were giving away. . . . But will those people go back and write letters? No! They're busy. They're having fun with their lifestyle and they don't think the government would dream of taking their utility away. That's the problem with this issue and we've never been able to pinpoint why.
Well, on your Web site,www.suvoa.com, some SUV owners seem a little self-absorbed. One person writes that he isgrateful for his SUVbecause when he fell asleep at the wheel and hit four other cars, he was able to walk away without a scratch. C'mon now.
I think there's a lot of human nature in that story. When people go to buy a motor vehicle, they're looking at safety, at crash test ratings. They want to know how it's protecting them and their family. We can't regulate human behavior. If safety is your number one priority, SUVs have a lower fatality rate than passenger cars.
A lower fatality rate for people in the SUV. What about drivers in smaller cars?
That's true, because you can't repeal the laws of physics. But there has always been a difference in the sizes of vehicles in our fleet. Should people who prefer smaller vehicles have the right to regulate what the rest of us drive? Ask this question: Would we have fewer fatalities if everyone drove compact cars, or if everyone drove SUVs? The answer is SUVs. The more metal you have, the more crash protection you have.
If everyone drove SUVs, we might eventually have to worry about deaths other than car crash fatalities.
Environmentalists who want to reduce the safety of vehicles say they are doing it for the health of the human race. But people dying on the road has to do with the health of the human race. You might believe in [global warming] 110 percent, but it's still theoretical. The known deaths of car accidents are just as important as theoretical deaths.
How do you feel about the recent CAFE [fuel economy] standard bills introduced in Congress?
It should not be the position of the government to decide what we can or cannot drive. The real solution is a world in which people can have their big honkin' SUVs and have all the power they want, but . . . not running on petroleum. . . . There are a limited number of smart people working at [car] companies. If we pass a really stringent CAFE standard, a lot of those smart people have to put their efforts into gasoline instead of finding other solutions.
What kind of car do you drive?
Lately [with the price of gas] I've mostly been driving my motorcycle. I'm more fuel-efficient than drivers of hybrid cars.
Teen Sex Rates Stop Falling, Data Show
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 22, 2007; A01
The long decline in sexual activity among U.S. teenagers, hailed as one of the nation's most important social and public health successes, appears to have stalled.
After decreasing steadily and significantly for more than a decade, the percentage of teenagers having intercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since then, despite the intensified focus in recent years on encouraging sexual abstinence, according to new analyses of data from a large federal survey.
The halt in the downward trend coincided with an increase in federal spending on programs focused exclusively on encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage, several experts noted. Congress is currently debating funding for such efforts, which receive about $175 million a year in federal money and have come under fire from some quarters for being ineffective.
The leveling off in teen sexual activity is worrying experts and advocates across the ideological spectrum. The fall of such activity has been one of the key forces behind a historic drop in teen pregnancy rates and has bolstered efforts to protect teenagers from sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS.
"It is alarming," said Susan Philliber of Philliber Research Associates, a private firm that studies teen sexuality. "We've had such a wonderful decade's run of getting the rate down. For it to level out causes everyone to go, 'Uh-oh.' "
Experts are unsure of the reasons for the change, but they speculated that it could be the result of a combination of factors, including growing complacency among the young about AIDS and the possibility that some irreducible portion of the teenage population can never be dissuaded from having sex.
"At a certain point, it becomes really hard to change basic human behaviors," said John Santelli, who studies teenagers at Columbia University. "I think what we're seeing is the limits of the emphasis on abstinence as the primary message."
But abstinence proponents argue that, if anything, the data underscore the need for greater emphasis on encouraging youngsters to abstain from sex until marriage.
"We need to increase abstinence education and give more dollars to abstinence education. It is the healthiest program we have for young people," said Leslee Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse.
A recent study of four separate abstinence programs, conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services by Mathematica Policy Research, a nonpartisan firm, found no evidence that the programs delayed the start of sexual activity among teens, but Unruh and others said such programs need more time and wider use to counter pervasive messages encouraging teens to have sex.
"Teenagers today live in an MTV-driven culture and are bombarded by sexual messages that say it is normative for them to get involved sexually," said Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council. "We need a message that sexual experimentation as a teenager is unhealthy."
The House last week approved a $28 million increase in spending on abstinence programs -- Democratic leaders said it was intended to win Republican support for the annual health and education funding bill -- but the Senate is considering a $28 million cut, largely because of concerns about the programs' efficacy.
The proportion of teenagers reporting having sexual intercourse rose steadily throughout the 1970s and 1980s, fueling an alarming rise in teen pregnancy. But that trend reversed around 1991 because of rising fears about sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS; changing social mores about sexual behavior; and other factors. At the same time, more teenagers reported using condoms and other forms of contraception. Together, the trends have pushed the teen pregnancy rate to historic lows, especially among African Americans.
"If there has been more progress made on another difficult major social issue, I don't know what it is," said Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "It's really a remarkable achievement."
But because the U.S. teen pregnancy rate remains far higher than those in other developed countries -- double the rate in England, for example -- the leveling off of sexual behavior is triggering alarms.
"Although we can celebrate the decline in teenage pregnancy, the United States still has a very high level of teenage births and pregnancy compared to other industrialized nations," said David Landry of the Guttmacher Institute in New York, an independent research institute that studies reproductive health issues. "There's still a long way to go."
Some fear that the leveling off in the rate of teenagers having intercourse could foreshadow a new upsurge in sexual activity, which could cause teen pregnancy and birth rates to climb again.
"My concern is that this plateau is the canary in the coal mine -- a harbinger of a reversal of these positive trends," said Michael D. Resnick, a teen health expert at the University of Minnesota.
The survey indicates that the increase in condom use may also be waning.
"It's not showing as strong of a stabilizing trend, but it's definitely slowing," Landry said.
The data on teen sexual activity come from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative survey of about 13,000 students in grades nine through 12 conducted every two years by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The most recent survey data, from 2005, was released last year, but attention focused primarily on the overall change in sexual behavior from 1991 to 2005 -- both when the CDC initially reported the data in June and again earlier this month when the findings were highlighted in an annual federal report on the well-being of U.S. children. That comparison shows a significant drop, from 54 percent to nearly 47 percent, in the proportion of teenagers who said they had ever had sex. The fraction who said they had sex in the past three months fell from 37 percent to 34 percent.
Largely unnoticed was that the percentages for both measures did not change significantly between 2001 and 2005. In response to a request from The Washington Post, the CDC analyzed the data for that time period to validate statistically that the rates had leveled off, for all grades, for both boys and girls and across all racial groups.
"We found that, over that time period, there were no changes in the overall percent of high school students who had ever had sex," said Laura K. Kann, who heads the survey project at the CDC. "It has decreased over the whole time from 1991, but there's been no change since 2001. There was flatness for all the subgroups for all the variables."
Researchers are awaiting the data from this year's survey to see whether the trend has continued.
Columbia's Santelli conducted another analysis of the available data, comparing the results from two time periods -- from 1991 to 1997 and from 1999 to 2005. It supports the interpretation that the trend line flattened.
"It seems clear that the trend seems to be faltering in the most recent period of time," said Santelli, who plans to present his findings this fall at a meeting of the American Public Health Association.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 22, 2007; A01
The long decline in sexual activity among U.S. teenagers, hailed as one of the nation's most important social and public health successes, appears to have stalled.
After decreasing steadily and significantly for more than a decade, the percentage of teenagers having intercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since then, despite the intensified focus in recent years on encouraging sexual abstinence, according to new analyses of data from a large federal survey.
The halt in the downward trend coincided with an increase in federal spending on programs focused exclusively on encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage, several experts noted. Congress is currently debating funding for such efforts, which receive about $175 million a year in federal money and have come under fire from some quarters for being ineffective.
The leveling off in teen sexual activity is worrying experts and advocates across the ideological spectrum. The fall of such activity has been one of the key forces behind a historic drop in teen pregnancy rates and has bolstered efforts to protect teenagers from sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS.
"It is alarming," said Susan Philliber of Philliber Research Associates, a private firm that studies teen sexuality. "We've had such a wonderful decade's run of getting the rate down. For it to level out causes everyone to go, 'Uh-oh.' "
Experts are unsure of the reasons for the change, but they speculated that it could be the result of a combination of factors, including growing complacency among the young about AIDS and the possibility that some irreducible portion of the teenage population can never be dissuaded from having sex.
"At a certain point, it becomes really hard to change basic human behaviors," said John Santelli, who studies teenagers at Columbia University. "I think what we're seeing is the limits of the emphasis on abstinence as the primary message."
But abstinence proponents argue that, if anything, the data underscore the need for greater emphasis on encouraging youngsters to abstain from sex until marriage.
"We need to increase abstinence education and give more dollars to abstinence education. It is the healthiest program we have for young people," said Leslee Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse.
A recent study of four separate abstinence programs, conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services by Mathematica Policy Research, a nonpartisan firm, found no evidence that the programs delayed the start of sexual activity among teens, but Unruh and others said such programs need more time and wider use to counter pervasive messages encouraging teens to have sex.
"Teenagers today live in an MTV-driven culture and are bombarded by sexual messages that say it is normative for them to get involved sexually," said Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council. "We need a message that sexual experimentation as a teenager is unhealthy."
The House last week approved a $28 million increase in spending on abstinence programs -- Democratic leaders said it was intended to win Republican support for the annual health and education funding bill -- but the Senate is considering a $28 million cut, largely because of concerns about the programs' efficacy.
The proportion of teenagers reporting having sexual intercourse rose steadily throughout the 1970s and 1980s, fueling an alarming rise in teen pregnancy. But that trend reversed around 1991 because of rising fears about sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS; changing social mores about sexual behavior; and other factors. At the same time, more teenagers reported using condoms and other forms of contraception. Together, the trends have pushed the teen pregnancy rate to historic lows, especially among African Americans.
"If there has been more progress made on another difficult major social issue, I don't know what it is," said Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "It's really a remarkable achievement."
But because the U.S. teen pregnancy rate remains far higher than those in other developed countries -- double the rate in England, for example -- the leveling off of sexual behavior is triggering alarms.
"Although we can celebrate the decline in teenage pregnancy, the United States still has a very high level of teenage births and pregnancy compared to other industrialized nations," said David Landry of the Guttmacher Institute in New York, an independent research institute that studies reproductive health issues. "There's still a long way to go."
Some fear that the leveling off in the rate of teenagers having intercourse could foreshadow a new upsurge in sexual activity, which could cause teen pregnancy and birth rates to climb again.
"My concern is that this plateau is the canary in the coal mine -- a harbinger of a reversal of these positive trends," said Michael D. Resnick, a teen health expert at the University of Minnesota.
The survey indicates that the increase in condom use may also be waning.
"It's not showing as strong of a stabilizing trend, but it's definitely slowing," Landry said.
The data on teen sexual activity come from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative survey of about 13,000 students in grades nine through 12 conducted every two years by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The most recent survey data, from 2005, was released last year, but attention focused primarily on the overall change in sexual behavior from 1991 to 2005 -- both when the CDC initially reported the data in June and again earlier this month when the findings were highlighted in an annual federal report on the well-being of U.S. children. That comparison shows a significant drop, from 54 percent to nearly 47 percent, in the proportion of teenagers who said they had ever had sex. The fraction who said they had sex in the past three months fell from 37 percent to 34 percent.
Largely unnoticed was that the percentages for both measures did not change significantly between 2001 and 2005. In response to a request from The Washington Post, the CDC analyzed the data for that time period to validate statistically that the rates had leveled off, for all grades, for both boys and girls and across all racial groups.
"We found that, over that time period, there were no changes in the overall percent of high school students who had ever had sex," said Laura K. Kann, who heads the survey project at the CDC. "It has decreased over the whole time from 1991, but there's been no change since 2001. There was flatness for all the subgroups for all the variables."
Researchers are awaiting the data from this year's survey to see whether the trend has continued.
Columbia's Santelli conducted another analysis of the available data, comparing the results from two time periods -- from 1991 to 1997 and from 1999 to 2005. It supports the interpretation that the trend line flattened.
"It seems clear that the trend seems to be faltering in the most recent period of time," said Santelli, who plans to present his findings this fall at a meeting of the American Public Health Association.
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