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The Washington Post reports that: Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person’s genitals “can result in pregnancy,” a congressional staff analysis has found. A report by Henry Waxman, who has been critical of the programs, is cited with further examples of the misconceptions which are being taught:
One curriculum, called “Me, My World, My Future,” teaches that women who have an abortion “are more prone to suicide” and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report says. Ruth has always been a great believer in using paper maps to navigate when she drives anywhere. Yesterday evening she set off the Cologne to attend the EuroSTAR 2004 conference on software testing, where she is presenting a paper on setting up a test lab. As usual, she declined to take our portable navigation system and set off with a printout of the directions and a road atlas. She reached Cologne in a couple of hours, but then spent over an hour driving round, and round, and round, near the Cologne Exhibition Centre, which is only 800 meters from her hotel – which she couldn’t find. Eventually, she stopped a taxi and followed it to the hotel! I think she may have finally changed her mind about the usefulness of navigation systems… The Independent makes me realise how lucky I am to not have been born in 1887 – if I had been, I would have had to sit an entrance exam to get into grammar school. Their article includes part of an examination paper recently found by someone whose father passed the test. Education experts say that today most A-level candidates (that puts them at about 18 years old) would struggle to pass the papers – and the entrance exam in question was taken by 11 year-olds in 1898. To get an idea of the difficulty, try this question – the answer is in the Independent: Where are Omdurman, Wai-Hei-Wai, Crete, Santiago, and West Key, and what are they noted for? The World Health Organisation has issued a stark warning on the possibility of a global flu pandemic, which would probably kill over -7 million- (2004-11-30: see below) people world wide. The breakout could occur any time from the next few weeks to several years from now, but unless there is close cooperation between nations around the world, containment of the virus will be impossible. The reason for concern is the fear that the asian bird flu virus may have recently infected humans for the first time, in Asia. A human vaccine for the bird flu virus is not expected until March 2005 at the earliest. The worst recent outbreak of a new flu strain is the Spanish flu in 1918-19, when up to 50 million people are thought to have died – nearly half of them young, healthy adults. Update (2004-11-30): I thought the figure of 7 million sounded low, the WHO has just been quoted as saying that the upper range is a lot higher – over 50 to 100 million could die when bird flu breaks out. The 7 million is, as stated in the original article, a low end-of-the-range figure. It’s good to see that the Kyoto Protocol is to come into effect on February 16th next year, despite the American government’s decision not to back it. America decided not to back the treaty in 2001, because the cost of meeting its targets would be too high for the US economy, which is massively dependent on the fossil fuels that are at the source of the problem. The US contains 4% of the world’s population but produces about 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions (Source: BBC). Russia has ratified the protocol, although her industry can much less afford the extra costs in the short term, than the American companies. Ruth and I enroled a couple of months ago in Spanish evening classes – as you might have guessed, if you spotted the link we added in our general links section (on the right) – and are struggling to keep on top of the homework and learning all those new words. So these tips from kuro5hin are both interesting and helpful, and the comments left by others are also worth reading. Oh dear, I know what Ruth is going to say when she reads this. A study by Toho University School of Medicine (in Japan) has shown a possible connection between heavy computer use and getting glaucoma. Glaucoma currently affects half a million people in the UK, and can cause blindness if not treated. MSN/Slate are running an article on the battle for Fallujah, which is in full swing at the moment. The author of the article, Fred Kaplan, takes a critical position, surmising that Bush will use any half-way convincing “win” to justify pulling the US troops out of Iraq as soon as the Iraqi elections have taken place – assuming the elections are not a complete fiasco. But what is interesting, is that according to the US National Public Radio, the often cited combined US and Iraq troops which are involved on the current assault are composed of some 10-15 thousand US troops and a mere 170 Iraqi troops. It seems that originally, 500 Iraqi troops should have been deployed alongside the US troops (which is a pretty low number too), but the remaining 330 deserted before the operation started. These were members of the 36th Special Operations battalion – the elite of Iraq’s new security forces. Obviously the Iraqis will not be in a position to take over responsibility for their own security any time soon. It looks pretty clear to me, that the most important role of the Iraqi troops is as an alibi for the USA, so they can imply it is not unilateral US action. The other interesting point in the article was a link to the New York Times, listing the countries that have now pulled out of the Coalition of the Willing or announced plans to significantly reduce or withdraw their troops completely within the coming months. Quite a long list, leaving the US looking increasingly isolated in Iraq. At the same time, the Guardian reports that since the Iraqi war started 19 months ago, 57 journalists have been killed in the fighting. This compares with 60 journalists killed in the whole of the Vietnam war (approx 17 years, depending on exactly how you define the period of war). Hundreds of Canadians are taking pity on the Americans who didn’t vote for Bush – there is a site where they can offer to marry an American so that they can move across the border to escape another 4 more years of cowboy conservatism in the USA. |
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