Recently in News Category

According to the Guttmacher Institute, whose mission statement reads "advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide," the teenager pregnancy rate is up for the first time in a decade.

Teens, they say, are getting it on more and more and not worrying about little things like condoms or other methods of birth control.

Reports The Institute:

For the first time in more than a decade, the nation's teen pregnancy rate rose 3% in 2006, reflecting increases in teen birth and abortion rates of 4% and 1%, respectively.

These new data from the Guttmacher Institute are especially noteworthy because they provide the first documentation of what experts have suspected for several years, based on trends in teens' contraceptive use--that the overall teen pregnancy rate would increase in the mid-2000s following steep declines in the 1990s and a subsequent plateau in the early 2000s. The significant drop in teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s was overwhelmingly the result of more and better use of contraceptives among sexually active teens. However, this decline started to stall out in the early 2000s, at the same time that sex education programs aimed exclusively at promoting abstinence--and prohibited by law from discussing the benefits of contraception--became increasingly widespread and teens' use of contraceptives declined.

"After more than a decade of progress, this reversal is deeply troubling," says Heather Boonstra, Guttmacher Institute senior public policy associate. "It coincides with an increase in rigid abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which received major funding boosts under the Bush administration. A strong body of research shows that these programs do not work. Fortunately, the heyday of this failed experiment has come to an end with the enactment of a new teen pregnancy prevention initiative that ensures that programs will be age-appropriate, medically accurate and, most importantly, based on research demonstrating their effectiveness."

According to some published reports, GOP Senator-elect Scott Brown, who posed nude for Cosmo mag back when he modeled, says he just might do it again.

We've heard about politicians who promise "full disclosure" but this may be more than we want to know.

[caption id="attachment_277" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Scott Brown (AP Photo)"][/caption]

Keith Olbermann, the left's answer to Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, went so far in a hyperbole-filled attack against Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown this week that even some of his more-liberal allies are calling him down for the tirade.

In coverage leading up to the final results of Tuesday's special election, Olbermann called Brown a "irresponsible homophobic racist reactionary ex-nude model teabagging supporter of violence against women and against politician with whom he disagrees."

When some questioned Obermann's judgment on the attacks, the sportswriter-turned-newsman amended his tirade to add "sexist" to the list.

That prompted comedian Jon Sewart to lampoon Olbermann's "special comment" and call the MNSBC anchor out. Stewart pointed out that Olbermann's so-called "evidence" is too week to back up the attack and asked Obermann to stop wallowing in the mud of personal attacks.

No response yet from Olbermann.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

[caption id="attachment_263" align="alignright" width="267" caption="(Photo from The New York Times)"][/caption]

Add another danger to life while talking on your cell phone.

Walking.

That's right...walking.

Ever hear the joke about the guy who couldn't walk and chew gun at the same time?

Now put talking on a cell phone into the mix.

Reports The New York Times:

On the day of the collision last month, visibility was good. The sidewalk was not under repair. As she walked, Tiffany Briggs, 25, was talking to her grandmother on her cellphone, lost in conversation.

Very lost.

“I ran into a truck,” Ms. Briggs said.

It was parked in a driveway.

Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cellphones to talk and text.

But there is another growing problem caused by lower-stakes multitasking — distracted walking — which combines a pedestrian, an electronic device and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor or a parked (or sometimes moving) car.

The era of the mobile gadget is making mobility that much more perilous, particularly on crowded streets and in downtown areas where multiple multitaskers veer and swerve and walk to the beat of their own devices.

Most times, the mishaps for a distracted walker are minor, like the lightly dinged head and broken fingernail that Ms. Briggs suffered, a jammed digit or a sprained ankle, and, the befallen say, a nasty case of hurt pride. Of course, the injuries can sometimes be serious — and they are on the rise.

Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text. That was twice the number from 2007, which had nearly doubled from 2006, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University, which says it is the first to estimate such accidents.

[caption id="attachment_266" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Dennis Hopper"][/caption]

According to multiple reports, Dennis Hopper is on his deathbed at the University of Southern California hospital after the prostate cancer he has fought for years spread to his bones.

Hopper, 73, is also using his final hours to divorce his wife, 43-year-old Victoria Hopper. Papers filed in Los Angeles cite "irreconcilable differences."  Family friends say its more about the cutting her out of Hopper's will.

The actor/photographer/writer/director has had a long and often troubled career. For many, he will be remembered most for Easy Rider although he made dozens of films over the year and appeared a couple of years ago in a short-lived TV series on NBC and more recently on the Starz series Crash.

We've had enough of the Jay Leno - Conan O'Brien soap opera.Why doesn't NBC just fire O'Brien, put Leno back in the host chair of the Tonight Show, and move on?

Oops, forgot, there's all that money, somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million they will have to pay the miffed O'Brien if they bounce him off the show even though, God knows, he's doing everything in his power to get fired.

It's obvious NBC will give Leno anything he wants and he wants the Tonight Show back now that his ill-fated Prime Time five-days-a-week debacle is headed for the scrap heap of television history.

O'Brien took over the top-rated late night talk show and turned it into a third-place show so in a medium ruled by ratings, the move should be a no-brainer.

Yet NBC is dragging its feet.

Why?

[caption id="attachment_255" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Running: Healthy or bad for your feet? (AP Photo)"][/caption]

Running shoes, decked out with the latest cushioning, motion control and arch support technologies, may not be as beneficial to your feet and joints as you might think.

A new study finds that running shoes, at least the kind currently on the market, may actually put more of a strain on your joints than if you were to run barefoot or even to walk in high-heeled shoes, and the increased pressure could lead to knee, hip and ankle damage. The scientists don’t recommend ditching your high-tech sneaks, however, as going barefoot on man-made surfaces could also prove harmful,

While exercise is no doubt beneficial for overall health, running and walking put stresses on your joints that may predispose you to getting osteoarthritis in those areas, said Dr. D. Casey Kerrigan, who conducted the study while at the University of Virginia, where she was a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation.  Osteoarthritis is the breakdown of cartilage in your joints, which can lead to bone rubbing on bone, causing pain, Kerrigan explained. Walkers and runners should try to minimize forces on their joints to prevent this damage, she said.

Read the Full Story from Live Science

[caption id="attachment_221" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Sans pants on the Subway (AP)"][/caption]

Hundreds of New Yorkers have been riding the city's subway trains in their underwear.

They stripped down to their undies on Sunday for the ninth annual No Pants Subway Ride.

The idea is to act like nothing unusual is going on.

Participants met up at six locations throughout the city. They formed groups and dispersed to subway stations to catch trains. Once inside the subway cars, they began calmly removing their pants and folding them up.

Most people read magazines or chatted with their companions like any other straphanger.

The event started in 2002 with just seven people. It has spread to other cities.

The stunt is organized by Improv Everywhere, a group that says its mission is to cause "scenes of chaos and joy in public places."

__

On The Net:

Improv Everywhere: http://improveverywhere.com

?

[caption id="attachment_183" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Charlie's booking photo"][/caption]

Looks like Charlie Sheen is on the sauce again. The bad-boy actor flew into Aspen for the holidays to see his kids and estranged wife and celebrated the holiday by getting drunk and beating her up.

Aspen police busted Sheen, one of the stars of the CBS comedy, "Two-and-a-half men" and booked him on two felony counts of domestic abuse and one misdemeanor. He spent part of Christmas Day in jail before posting an $850o bond.

Charlie blew 0.04 in a blood alcohol test while his wife clocked in at 0.13 so both were hitting the bottle.

Sheen is the highest paid actor in television, pulling down more than 800 grand an episode.

She was every teen-aged boy's wet dream in the 1970s, the blond with the perfect smile, the perfect body with just a hint of nipple showing because she could, and did, go without a bra most of the time.

Farah Fawcett was the perfect sex symbol for the time and even though the matured into a legitimate actress and fought the cancer that would eventually claim her life with grace and style, we remember her sexuality with no guilt.

The poster with the one-piece, form-fitting swimsuit, hung in many a young boy's bedroom and fed both fantasy and raging hormones. 

Fawcett, 62, died today after a long public battle with cancer. But even at the end, with her gaunt body ravaged by the disease she remained a timeless beauty.

Goodbye Farah. We will miss you but we also will never forget.  You were an icon of the 70s who endured. In hse times, that's a very rare commodity.