Sesame Streets

Because sometimes it's time for a new view of what we're used to.

4Parents No Good 4 Kids

In a rather rare case of Ricky Shambles not going all the way down the rabbit hole, back when I posted the "Talk to Kids PSA," I neglected to investigate the reference made at the beginning that noted the video was in response to 4Parents.gov.

What is 4Parents.gov?

You can help your son or daughter make healthy choices, including deciding to wait until marriage to have sex. 4parents.gov can help you talk to your child, pre-teen, or teen early and often about waiting to have sex, what happens as he or she grows, and other important topics.

So 4Parents is a resource for parents to talk to their kids about sex? No.

It is a poorly conceived and designed site with content focused around why sex is bad, why sex is risky, and - if you don't heed your mother's words - why all contraception will fail you. Yes, seriously. Check out the Birth Control Chart and subsequent verbiage. In other words: this is an abstinence site.

Who is 4Parents.gov?

4Parents.gov is part of a national public education campaign to provide parents with the information, tools and skills they need to help their teens make healthy choices, including waiting until marriage to have sex.

As noted, this site is actually about not talking about sex.

4Parents.gov is sponsored by the Office of Public Health and Science, Office of Population Affairs, and the Public Health Service. "Teen Chat," and "Parents, Speak Up!" guides are the result of a collaborative effort between the Administration for Children and Families and the Office of Population Affairs, Office of Public Health and Science.

And you probably guessed this from the whole ".gov" thing, but this is a United States Government website.

What does science say about abstinence-only education?

From the AP:

The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having "positive outcomes" including teenagers "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use."
...
A spending bill before Congress for the Department of Health and Human Services would provide $141 million in assistance for community-based, abstinence-only sex education programs, $4 million more than what President Bush had requested.

What's the big deal?

Abstinence-only education is and has been the focus of this administration from the beginning because of President Bush's repeatedly revealed religion-over-science agenda. As the above-noted and other reports have stated, abstinence-only ed does not work. But having sex before marriage is a "sin," so government websites that purport to help parents and government programs aimed at educating children centralize around the ineffective church tactic of ignoring reality and attempting to scare kids away from sex.

The problem is in the repetition, with Bush consistently Jesus-izing government spending at the peril - and sometimes direct interference - of real, hard science. The Administration is failing parents and their children across America. And they're doing it with our tax dollars.

And that should be a pretty big deal for all of us.

Write congress. Stop the spending.

A Note to Republicans

This is a screen capture from the GOP Website front page:



Republicans: Are you retarded? Do you really have to hear this from a liberal? That this man is president is sinking your party (Democrats picked up even more seats in state governments on Tuesday). He will be no one in 14 months. Don't celebrate him. Jettison!

Bush: I Don't Know Nothin' 'Bout Birthin' No Oil...Iran!

From an AP transcript of the Bush-Kozy lovefest:

Q: Mr. President, with oil approaching $100 a barrel, are you concerned that your hard words for Iran on its nuclear program are helping drive up oil prices, which can end up hurting the U.S. economy?

BUSH: No. I believe oil prices are going up because the demand for oil outstrips the supply for oil. Oil is going up because developing countries still use a lot of oil. Oil is going up because we use too much oil. And the capacity to replace reserves is dwindling. That's why the price of oil is going up.

Now, I believe it is important for us to send clear signals to the Iranian government...

Blah blah blah... we need to attack Iran!

While dry-humping the new, Georgie-lovin' President of France in Washington this week, President Bush alluded to his complete ignorance of how our world works. Oil prices go up, in part, because of a basic supply/demand structure, but our recent surge is tempered in the forges of energy forecasters and traders.

All you have to do is watch the morning news and hear "Oil prices took a leap today because of fears of a possible storm in the North Sea" or "...because of fears that Bush may attack Iran" or "...because of fears that Wonka Bar production may move to Oompa-LoompaLand." Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick!

But the President is very good much sexy friends with people who make shit-tons of money all over the world trading in the everyday affairs of regular citizens and wants to make sure that when his caustic second term is over that he can jump back in the pimped out money pool with all the folks he allowed to benefit from his two terms in office. Between horrendous military contracts, education tomfoolery, and allowing Big Oil to rape America, he's going to be one of the richest bastards in the world by March of 2009. As long as he doesn't invest in the dollar.

Or he's just - really - mentally retarded and doesn't even have a basic understanding about how the world economy works.

I'll accept arguments from either end. To paraphrase a British punk paraphrase: America is Dead...Long Live America!

The Adam and Eve Puzzle

Blue Gal had this image posted in that she actually worked on it with kids. I don't know how she held it together.



The joy of this image is several-fold in that it occurs in the fiction-lover's Latin in media res, or, "in the middle of things," where a story begins not at the beginning but beyond the expository events.

In this case, for those of you not up on your Genesis, this image is dramatic irony at its most dramatic. Dramatic irony is when what the character(s) thinks to be true and what the reader (or viewer) know to be true are contrasted.

In this case, we are in media res of the Fall of Man: Eve has already been tempted by the serpent, who is looking happily upon the couple coming together; Eve holds the "fruit" to help share the temptation with Adam, which we know is destined to happen; a large confluence of animals in Eden have come together to smile with their child-like innocence in preparation of this "who-knows-what'll-happen" event.

In reality, according to the Christian faith, this is the most destructive moment in the history of the human race and - in some denominations - the very reason God must send Jesus to redeem humanity by being crucified.

And there the kids are, putting a puzzle together. Wasn't there a Ouiji Board (that glows in the dark!) they could play with?

Oh, the humanity!

FOX Attacks: Decency

Oh, my gawd, tha whores! Change the channel! FOX Attacks has put together another film. This one is FOX Attacks: Decency.



And you, too, can sign the petition to demand a la carte cable viewing. So that you don't have to pay for FOX's smut.

Personally, I'd pay for FOX for the same reason I'm a Hannity Insider: Know thy enemy. But not everyone's as masochistic as I am.

Glenn Beck: Unrelated

[Note on this Unrelated note: This note was originally appended to a previous post, but as it was unrelated to anything being said in that post I felt it should have its own post, which makes it either completely related unto itself or completely unrelated in its ostracization.]


[Unrelated note: I'm listening to Glenn Beck's TV show and he's decrying Hollywood for "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" in their treatment of war. 1. Isn't that the definition of what we're apparently doing in Iraq and why it's not working? 2. The trite, mishandled, misquoted, mis-attributed saying is a representative symptom of Glenn Beck being a tremendous douchebag.

Like I said, unrelated.]


[Unrelated unrelated note (could we quit with the brackets already?): A few weeks ago I was out on a lunchtime jaunt and heard Rush Limbaugh spout that if global warming was to blame for the forest fires in California, it should also put them out because global warming causes flooding. That's right: flooding in the mountainous, forested regions of California. This is the twisted idiot junk science that we hear repeated and why the words out of Rush's mouth are a disease, spreading through the ignorant masses like the clap. Rush Limbaugh is also a douchebag, which, I guess, doesn't make this note so unrelated as I had anticipated.

Fin.]

Davis Fleetwood Kucinich Announcement

Davis Fleetwood (nocureforthat.com) has something to say:



I offer him congratulations and envious awe. Woohoo!

So now, just like me, you're going to have to subscribe not only to the Davis Fleetwood YouTube Channel, but the Kucinich 2008 YouTube Channel as well.

And then you'll be the coolest.

Best Vader Evar

This is quite possibly the best Darth Vader fan video I've seen. All clips, all James Earl. Hilarious. I laughed until I stopped.

6 Televangelists, Properly Probed

From CBS:

CBS News has learned Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating six prominent televangelist ministries for possible financial misconduct.
...
According to Grassley's office, the Iowa Republican is trying to determine whether or not these ministries are improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles.

The six ministries identified as being under investigation by the committee are led by: Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn. Three of the six - Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar - also sit on the Board of Regents for the Oral Roberts University.

It's about time.

How long does it take to watch thousand-dollar suits wearing thousand-dollar jewelry driving absurdly expensive cars to say "Hey, while these people may be occasionally helping others in the name of Christ and 'their church,' where do we draw the line when they directly benefit from the money their followers generate?"

WWJD?

Jesus wouldn't purchase lavish homes (that's plural), lavish cars, jewelry, and outfits. "At once they left their nets and followed him" (Matthew 4:20) apparently does not apply to the messenger, just the listener, so that more can be turned into the fold, that more can donate almost everything they own, and more megachurches can be built to generate more income. Rinse and repeat.

And while there are those that give hope appropriately (like Joel Olsteen who doesn't take a salary from his parish but has a very successful book following), there are those, like Benny Hinn, who finds his prey by lack of hope and gives them nothing more than his version of mass-delusional, "witch doctor" healing. Benny Hinn needs to be figuratively crucified (by the government). Here's some crazy to back that up:

Benny Hinn, for real:
(Note: "Suicide Nerve" is not a valid reference.)



Benny Hinn, Let the Bodies Hit the Floor:

(Note: all the video of this "healing man" is real. But the music gives it perspective.)



I'm a very big believer in the power of the human mind to monitor and fix what's ailing you, but this man is a psychological-religious predator, and he is shredding the actual message and healing power of Jesus in what is little more than a glorified (and subsidized by the government) freak show.

Want to go crazy? This man is either feeding on the mass psychological group dynamic or he's channeling some source of electromagnetic shutdown that makes people drop by interference of their brainwave patterns. Like I said: crazy.

And he eats money like the devil eats souls.

Jesus wept.

Talk to Kids PSA

Some days, when the martial law of Pakistan as an off-site dry run of what Busheney is planning to do to America gets you down, you can always turn to viral video. In this case, high quality viral. It's a "Talk to Kids" PSA. And it made my day. Enjoy.