Eeyore's News and a View or two

TV might rush teens into sex
By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY
A steady diet of sex-saturated television might encourage teens to start sex earlier, a national survey of 1,762 kids suggests today
Programs with sexually oriented conversations have as much effect as those that depict sex or imply that sex has happened, says psychologist Rebecca Collins of RAND Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif. Her study is reported in the Pediatrics online journal.
The research is the first that takes into account other factors linked to early teen sex — such as poor grades, low parent education, having older friends and living in a one-parent home — and tracks how TV-watching might predict sexual activity, says Jane Brown, a University of North Carolina media researcher who specializes in adolescents. The phone survey of 12- to 17-year-olds also took into account sexual experience at the start of the study.
Kids who said they watched more sex-oriented programs at the beginning of the year were more likely than others their age to become sexually active during the next year. Those in the top 10% for viewing of sexually related scenes were twice as likely to engage in intercourse as those in the lowest 10%, Collins says. The more sex-oriented scenes they saw, the more likely they were to become sexually active.
"It's social learning: 'monkey see, monkey do,' " Collins says. "If everyone's talking about sex or having it, and something bad hardly ever comes out of it, because it doesn't on TV, then they think, 'Hey, the whole world's doing it, and I need to.' "
The study didn't take into account a teen's interest in sex or feelings of sexual readiness as the year began. So the findings might exaggerate TV's influence in causing kids to start sex, says adolescent psychologist Joseph Allen of the University of Virginia.
"Sexually explicit TV viewing is exactly the kind of thing adolescents would do if they were interested in becoming sexually active," Allen says. "She may be picking up on teenagers who are about to seek out sexual experiences." Different levels of readiness might have a small effect on the findings, Collins says.
Physical maturity also matters. More sexually developed youngsters feel readier for sex and are more likely to be sexually active, Allen says, "and almost certainly these kids would be watching more sexy TV shows."
Television executives were skeptical, too. "With all due respect to RAND, we do not believe that one show can alter a person's sexual behavior," says HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson. HBO aired Sex and the City, one of the programs tracked in the study.
"Some TV may be too provocative for kids, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be on the air," says Todd Leavitt, president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. "As the father of three daughters, I believe parents have an obligation to monitor their kids' TV viewing."
Teens whose parents supervised their activities closely were less likely to watch sexually oriented shows.
"Most important is keeping the set out of children's bedrooms, because otherwise the kids have complete control over what they watch," Brown says. Studies show that about 3 of 5 teens have TVs in their bedrooms, she says.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2004-09-06-teens-tv-sex-usat_x.htm

Cash was king - now gold is God
Americans are piling into gold as national debt and inflation soar, says Philip Delves Broughton
The national debt clock which ticks away over Union Square in Lower Manhattan, showing Americans the speed at which their country is sinking into the red, ran out of digits on Wednesday. The federal government's debt had tipped over $10 trillion and it will take until next year for the property developers who own the clock to update it. They promise to add two digits so that it can go up to a quadrillion.
Meanwhile, in the city's streets and bars, the talk was all about the one commodity holding value: gold. Whether it's a wedding ring, your grandmother's jewellery or a bar of gold bullion, it's what everyone wants. Cash may be king, but gold is God.
The price of gold has been moving upwards all year as smart investors around the world saw what was happening in the world of paper money. The SPDR Gold Trust, an exchange traded fund which buys and sells gold bullion dependent on investor demand, had 755 tons of bullion on hand last week, the most in its history and more than the reserves of the UK, Japan, China or the European Central Bank. Meanwhile the price of gold relative to currencies around the world has been hitting record highs.
Gold and silver traders are frazzled trying to locate, buy and ship stores of gold, whether coins or bars. With prices so volatile and insecurity so rampant, deals and promises are proving hard to nail down.
Gold Bugs, a curious group of traders who exist on the periphery of global finance, suddenly find themselves smack in the middle. They believe we should liquidate everything held in a bank, print out any stock certificates and lock them away and then retreat under the bed with a shotgun and a couple of gold bars.
All of this should make Gordon Brown squirm about his decision to sell more than half of Britain's gold reserves in 1999 when the price of bullion was at a 20-year low.
The price of gold has since soared three-fold and Brown's decision has cost the Treasury around £3bn. Aside from the direct financial hit, it would have been extremely comforting for the British government to have had 400 extra tons of gold bars in its vaults these days versus stacks of Euro-denominated bonds.
It would be easy in calmer times to dismiss the Gold Bugs as wackos. But the evidence in their favour keeps on piling up. Sixteen per cent of American homeowners now owe more than their homes are worth, up from six per cent last year. One incredulous Wall Street analyst told me that there was a day last week when not a single new car was sold in the United States. The average daily sale used to be about 40,000.
Gold's value is also likely to rise with fears of inflation. The debate over inflation has become impenetrable. Official figures suggest it is under control. All those banks who cut interest rates this week don't seem to be worried about it. And yet anyone who has to fill up their car or go to the supermarket nows the truth: everything is much more expensive than it was a year ago. The only conclusion can be that official inflation figures can no longer be trusted.
There is another reason to believe that inflation is secretly desired by the United States. It would be the quickest way of erasing its debts - far quicker than actually working to pay them off.
Milton Friedman said that inflation is a purely monetary phenomenon. The more money sluicing through an economy chasing a limited supply of goods, the higher inflation goes. Many economists argue that this fundamental link has been broken by globalisation, the rapid growth of emerging economies and more sophisticated money management by Central Banks.
But it is hard not to suspect that all those colossal cheques being written by the US government and others will not have some effect on prices. Ten per cent inflation by the middle of next year will make the gold hoarders look even smarter than they do today.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45599,opinion,americans-are-piling-into-gold-as-national-debt-and-inflation-soar

Thank God it is almost over, my prediction writing this on 11/3/04 my prediction is McCain will win the popular and electoral votes. It won't be as close as the last 8 years either. Peer pressure is a terrible disease and it is fed by the media. It is what has lead to Senator Obama's undoing. Peer pressure has lead Americans to lie to the pollsters and pollsters don't have enough money to poll correctly (some would say honestly) Black people fear to tell the truth, because they don't want to be called an "Uncle Tom", Spanish people lie because they don't want to be called a "Tio Taco" and Whites don't want to be called a "racists". It would be better if they did not lie, but what do you expect? It is all they see out of the politicians and people on the news and other media. The Congress (House and Senate) will still be dominated by the Democrats. Basically nothing will change. The Republican President along with the Democratic house has spent us into so much debt (as a Nation) it will be almost impossible to come out of unless something drastic happens. Me i was going to vote for Bob Barr, the man has a lot of character, but is still a politician. Right now Maybe in the next few years. What would help this Country more then anything right now is to enact term limits on Congress (the House and Senate) one term each with no hope of re election ever to any office. That single event would help more then anything else. As long as they make it a career and become masters and not servants, it will never end. No more perks that make them think they are special, no more movie cameras in the chambers. Maybe we would have more people that wanted to help this Country run for office instead of see how they can gain from being in office. So i'm on the record.

Fact Check: The myths that wouldn't go away November 3, 2008 - 3:47am
By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Facts have taken a beating in Campaign '08.
Each in his own way, John McCain and Barack Obama have produced enduring myths, amplified by their running mates and supporters. When a non-licensed plumber who owes back taxes and would get a tax cut under Obama is held out by McCain as a stand-in for average working Americans who should vote Republican, you know truth-telling is taking a back seat to myth-making.
McCain has clung tenaciously to many of his distortions throughout the campaign, yielding on a few.
Obama has taken a different tack when he is called on his misstatements. Although perhaps too late to really set the record straight, he's edged closer to the facts.
You might need a microscope to tell the difference, but slight variations in a pitch or accusation can make all the difference between bogus and real.
Obama saddled McCain with a bum rap when he accused the Republican of wanting a 100-year war in Iraq back in the spring. Finally he relented and said McCain sees U.S. troops being in Iraq for 100 years. That's closer to right _ as a peacekeeping force like the one in South Korea. But McCain might be long associated with war without end.
Obama accused McCain of wanting to privatize Social Security, which he doesn't. Now he accuses McCain of wanting to privatize "part" of Social Security, which he does, as one option that younger workers could choose.
For his part, McCain has blithely carried on with a variety of discredited claims, abetted by a running mate whose exuberance is not at all dimmed by contrary evidence.
Sarah Palin repeated her boast that she declared "thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere" long after it became clear she had said no such thing _ neither in words nor in essence.
McCain's down-to-the-wire accusation that Obama "will raise your taxes" contradicts Obama's tax-cut proposals for all but wealthy Americans. His dark warnings that Obama will fine small businesses that do not provide health insurance goes against a plan by the Democrat that exempts small businesses from paying for coverage. In fact, Obama would give them money to help them offer insurance.
Beyond the realm of exaggeration and misrepresentation, omission plays a large part, too, in denying voters important information on what the next president will do.
Neither candidate has owned up to the budget crunch that is certain to crimp their promises, send the country far deeper into debt, or both. Obama's assertion that his cost savings more than pay for his programs, and McCain's statement that he'll freeze most government spending and balance the budget in four years, are not believed outside their campaigns and circles of allies.
Some of the myths:
OIL SLICKNESS:
"We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much," McCain says, again and again.
That's a seriously inflated figure cited by McCain for the value of U.S. oil imports from countries hostile to America. In fact, the government says the U.S. spent less than half that sum on crude oil and refined petroleum projects from foreign sources last year, and most were from friendly countries such as Canada, Mexico and Britain.
Obama upped the stakes when he used the figure, boiling the vast web of oil and debt transactions down to two countries: "Nothing is more important than us no longer borrowing $700 billion or more from China and sending it to Saudi Arabia," he said. "It's mortgaging our children's future."
HEALTH CARE HORRORS
It only takes McCain and Palin a few words to bend Obama's health care plan out of recognition.
McCain tells supporters he "won't fine small businesses and families with children, as Senator Obama proposes, to force them into a new, huge, government-run health care program, while I keep the cost of the fine a secret until I hit you with it."
Palin talks about Obama's "universal government-run program" and adds: "I don't think it's going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the Feds."
Obama's plan doesn't fine small businesses. It doesn't force families with children, or anyone, into government-run health care. And the Feds wouldn't be taking over the system.
Between them, McCain and Palin got one part of it half right: Obama has not said how much he would fine larger companies if they do not meet his requirement to offer health insurance or pay into a kitty.
McCain's health plan is distorted, in turn, by Obama.
"Your health care benefits will get taxed for the first time in history," Obama warns voters in attacking it. He often leads voters to think that's the full story. Hardly.
McCain, in exchange for proposing to tax the value of health benefits provided by employers, would offer a tax credit to help people buy insurance. That tax benefit _ $5,000 for a family _ gives people much more than the new taxation takes away.
Over time, the tax credit could lose value as premiums rise faster.
But that's not an argument the Democratic ticket has chosen to make, in speeches, debates and relentless advertising. Running mate Joe Biden mischaracterized the new taxation as the largest middle-class tax increase in history, ignoring the credits in a rhetorical exercise that would flunk Accounting 101.
___
THAT DARNED BRIDGE
When Palin ran for governor, she indicated her support for a proposal to build a nearly $400 million bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska, to an island with 50 residents and an airport. She was, at times, wishy-washy about it.
But that doesn't make for a compelling line against government waste on the stump.
So her stance became: "I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere." And a campaign ad declared she "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."
Actually, during her governor's campaign, she vowed to defend Southeast Alaska "when proposals are on the table like the bridge, and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative." At the time, the chief "spinmeister" against the project was McCain.
As governor, she abandoned the bridge after Washington pulled the money from it, letting the federal dollars be used for other projects in the state.
In September, her transportation department completed a $25 million gravel road to nowhere. Officials went ahead with the road, which would have led to the bridge, even though it has no purpose other than for foot races, hunting vehicles and possible future development.
___
GUILT BY ASSOCIATION
William Ayers, a University of Illinois education professor and former member of the radical Weather Underground, was front and center in Republican claims that Obama was "palling around with terrorists," as Palin put it. Ayers had a meet-the-candidate event in his home for Obama early in the Democrat's political career. The two served on the board of the Woods Fund. And they live in the same neighborhood.
McCain and Palin stretched the extent of that relationship to link Obama with shadowy figures.
Beyond that, they falsely implied that Ayers used the occasion of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to wish even greater harm.
"We don't care about an old washed-up terrorist and his wife, who still, at least on Sept. 11, 2001, said he still wanted to bomb more," McCain told a rally.
This distortion originated in Hillary Rodham Clinton's playbook during the primaries, when she criticized Obama for the same relationship.
Ayers, Clinton said, made comments "which were deeply hurtful to people in New York and, I would hope, to every American, because they were published on 9/11, and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more."
By coincidence, The New York Times published a story on the day of the attacks about Ayers and what he called his fictionalized memoirs. The story was based on an interview he had done earlier, in Chicago, in which he declared, "I don't regret setting bombs," and "I feel we didn't do enough," even while seeming to dissociate himself coyly from the group's most destructive acts.
Late in the campaign, McCain and Palin criticized Obama for attending a 2003 party for Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American professor and critic of Israel. But McCain is also linked Khalidi. The professor was a founder of the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, which received $448,000 from an organization McCain chairs.
___
FUZZY NUMBERS
_$4 billion: "John, you want to give oil companies another $4 billion" in tax breaks, Obama told McCain in a debate.
In fact, McCain supports a cut in income taxes for all corporations, and doesn't single out any one industry for that benefit.
_$2,500: That's how much Obama says his health care plan will bring down costs for a family of four.
Obama's plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four over time. Even if savings that large are achieved _ economists are highly skeptical _ not every dollar is bound to be passed on to consumers.
_94: That's how many times McCain and Palin say that Obama has voted for tax increases or not to support a tax cut.
This inflated count includes repetitive votes as well as votes to cut taxes for the middle class while raising them on the rich. An analysis by factcheck.org found that 23 of the votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all, seven were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, 11 would have increased taxes on only those making more than $1 million a year.
_$882 billion: "Senator McCain would pay for part of his plan by making drastic cuts in Medicare _ $882 billion worth," Obama said. Obama ads claim McCain would cut benefits by 22 percent.
McCain's plan proposes neither. He wants to save money the same way Obama wants to _ by making programs such as Medicare more efficient.
Obama's claim misrepresents what a McCain adviser said in a Wall Street Journal story and adds distorted analysis from a partisan think tank to come up with something that goes against what McCain says he would do _ protect promised benefits from being cut.
http://wtop.com/?nid=213&sid=1509629

Brisk walking brings better health, lesser body fat A new study confirms that doing something as simple as brisk walking can boost weight loss while trimming dangerous belly fat and overall body fat.Scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle followed 102 men and 100 women for a year. At the beginning, the participants, ages 40 to 75, were sedentary and unfit. They were divided into two groups: One was encouraged to do 60 minutes of physical activity a day, six days a week; the other was given no specific exercise advice. There was no diet plan.
Among the findings, presented in Phoenix at last month's annual meeting of the Obesity Society, a national group of weight-loss researchers and professionals:
• Women who increased their activity level by an additional 3,500 steps a day lost 5 pounds during the year.
• Men who added that many steps lost 8½ pounds in a year.
• The exercisers who did the most — 60 minutes, six days a week — decreased their belly fat by 10% to 20%.
• Those same exercisers trimmed 10% to 15% of their overall body fat without losing muscle mass.
"Both men and women can lose weight and body fat with exercise, which is a good start to reversing the weight-gain course that most Americans are on," says lead researcher Anne McTiernan, an internist and director of the Prevention Center at Fred Hutchinson. She has done previous research that shows regular physical activity significantly reduces belly fat, possibly lowering the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and some types of cancer.
Experts believe the fat cells deep in the abdomen are harmful because they secrete chemicals that play a role in a number of diseases. The cells produce about three times more bad chemicals than subcutaneous fat, the stuff you can pinch right under your skin, says Timothy Church, director of preventive medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.
"Plus, the plumbing of visceral fat drains directly to the liver, allowing the bad chemicals to directly interfere with the liver's ability to metabolize blood sugar and cholesterol," he says.
In addition to lowering the risk of many serious medical conditions, regular physical activity also improves quality of life by reducing stress, depression and anxiety, and by improving bone and joint health, sex drive, sleep and memory, Church says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2008-11-02-brisk-walking_N.htm