Tags for this video have been changed from 'live, folk, rock, chorus of 15, 000, 80s, 1980' to 'the boss, live, folk, rock, chorus of 15, 000, 80s, 1980, teen, pregnancy' - edited by calvados

1. My dad was a bullrider
2. My mom was a homecoming queen
3. I spent most of my childhood on a farm
4. As a child, I had a Shetland Pony named "Kong"
5. I started driving when I was twelve
6. My high school graduating class had 33 people in it
7. I'm pretty handy with a gun
8. I shot my first deer with my first shot through the heart
9. I used to be a very good pool player
10. My first car was a '67 Chevy Impala
11. I've performed in three plays
12. I wrote, directed, and edited a 30-minute movie called “Sotto Voce” about teen pregnancy
13. I've written three novels (never published)
14. I'm a college drop-out
15. I'm a Lamda Chi Alpha
16. I once had a spike haircut with a pink and purple stripe on the side
17. I over-dosed and nearly died once
18. I've tripped on LSD over 250 times
19. I once bought a quarter pound of weed to resell and deal
20. I never sold any of it and smoked it all myself
21. I taught myself how to type (70 wpm)
22. I'm a trivia buff and love NTN
23. I study Buddhism and the I Ching
24. I was once an alter boy in the Catholic church
25. In grade school my teachers were Irish Nuns

- By itself, atheism is not a bad thing. But since the human
heart is infinitely deceptive, atheism solves nothing either. -

While most Americans believe that getting rid of religion is an impossible goal, much of the developed world has already accomplished it. Any account of a “god gene” that causes the majority of Americans to helplessly organize their lives around ancient works of religious fiction must explain why so many inhabitants of other First World societies apparently lack such a gene. The level of atheism throughout the rest of the developed world refutes any argument that religion is somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on Earth. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the 50 nations now ranked lowest in terms of human development are unwaveringly religious. Other analyses paint the same picture: The United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious superstition and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms. Of course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causality--belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a society’s health.

Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link between Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by other indices of charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between top-tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France 15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475 to 1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to squeeze easily through the eye of a needle.

"they do this in other countrys where the people are not free" she says:

...umm...oh i think by "not free" sarah palin actually means live better living standards in pretty much every possibly way that americans do on average... meaning higher average education,home ownership, life expectancy, literacy rates and lower average teen pregnancies, abortions, homeless, infant mortality rates, homicide and crime rates, and human rights.


im talking about countrys like Sweeden, Norway, UK, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Greenland, Iceland and FRANCE who are much better off currently then the USA in those respects.

but i mean, atleast you dont have the government beinging a "second member of your family".... thats just creepy.

Palin, if elected, WOULD force her beliefs on people by:

* Restricting abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.

* "abstinence only" sex education (i.e. telling high school students almost nothing about sex except that they shouldn't have it until marriage, and prohibiting teachers from actually educating students about contraception, disease prevention, and relevant biology.) This piece of crap plan was first dreamed up in the heart of the bible belt and led to the bible belt having the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation. These "family values" conservatives are implementing policies that are causing the opposite of the outcomes they desire.

* Supporting Bush's OFBCI, which puts my tax money into evangelical christian organizations (exclusively, excluding all other religions & moderate varieties of Christianity)

* Helping McCain appoint more conservative hacks like Alito to the Supreme Court, where they'll OK evisceration of the parts of the bill of rights that prohibit torture and unreasonable searches & seizures.

He's a palaeontologists? Hmm. Wanna read my paper on quantum physics? I did some research.

Wait- There's something wrong with teen pregnancy?

manslaughter, 1st degree. by means of assisted social anxiety and complications from asthma.

or...

unplanned teen pregnancies, had this been on the blue field.

Why has nobody done a Sarah Palin vs. Beverly hill billies mashup? After all - all her kids have hill-billy names. Teen Pregnancy and KKK Boy friends is alls da the family.

Nobody loves a cousin-lover more than a small town Alaskan.

*thats right i went there, seemed like the right time and place. Bad Taste WIN*

James Dobson, of the conservative Christian group Focus On The Family, said in 2006 regarding the child of (lesbian couple) Mary Cheney and Heather Poe:

In raising these issues, Focus on the Family does not desire to harm or insult women such as Cheney and Poe. Rather, our conviction is that birth and adoption are the purview of married heterosexual couples. Traditional marriage is God's design for the family and is rooted in biblical truth. When that divine plan is implemented, children have the best opportunity to thrive. That's why public policy as it relates to families must be based not solely on the desires of adults but rather on the needs of children and what is best for society at large.

As Crosswords already stated, Sarah Palin was specifically chosen because of her appeal to conservative family values voters. Now I'm not saying her daughter deserves criticism; she should be left alone. However Ms. Palin's stance on family values SHOULD be brought into focus because of what happened to her daughter, because abstinence-only education has been a bust. In fact look at the teen pregnancy rates of all 50 states (from 2002), red vs. blue. Do you notice an alarming trend?

Again, I'm not saying that this girl deserves criticism. However Ms. Palin certainly deserves some, because it is policies that she endorses that leads to higher teen pregnancy rates.

Teen pregnancy isn't the end of the world. Many teens go on to become wonderful parents. However most all parents across the political spectrum want to reduce teen pregnancy for good reasons:

1. Most teens aren't ready, either financially or emotionally, to be full time mothers. The same goes for the fathers.
2. Most of us want our kids to at least have a chance to go to college after high school, that way they can hopefully get better-paying jobs with their degrees.
3. Most parents would prefer not see their teenage daughters get pregnant at all, rather than see them get abortions. Even most pro-choice people prefer that. And let's face it, teens of all backgrounds, liberal to conservative, get abortions. I'm not trying to stigmatize abortion. I am pro-choice, but I'd much rather see other forms of birth-control employed first.

In conclusion: Leave the girl alone, but grill the mom about why she believes abstinence-only is so great. After 8 years of faith-based initiatives ruining our educational system (and abstinence-only education is just the tip of the faith-based iceberg), it's time for us to push back.

I disagree, abstinence is about not having sex. Being responsible about sex is who you have it with, how and the sort of birth control and disease prevention devices you use. I call her hypocrite because she suggests abstinence is a good method of preventing teen pregnancy, and should be the only method taught in schools and yet it doesn't seem to have worked with her own daughter (I assume this is what she taught her daughter or she'd be an even bigger hypocrite). At the very least it provides evidence at how irresponsible a position that is, and calls into question her judgment.

Now if the girl and her boyfriend wanted(planned in advance) to have a baby that'd be another case. Though I'm assuming since they didn't say that the pregnancy was unplanned. Or if it was due to actual failure of birth control (And by failure I don't mean improper/ineffective use), that is also another issue.

>> ^swampgirl:
You can't call Palin hypocrite because her daughter got pregnant. Teaching abstinence is about taking responsibility for sex. The teen made the choice and now has the consequence.
Now if Palin had her secretly abort her baby to avoid embarrassment.. THEN she would be a hypocrite.


EDIT: (I need to learn to type/post faster on these hot debate topics). Yes the girl is responsible for her actions, but her family is responsible for the information she's given on the topic. Was she ever taught condoms ever an option for this girl? Birthcontrol? Emergency contraception? Have teenagers ever stopped having sex at any point in history for any reason?

I should also say, that coming from a public school system that had NEXT TO NO sex-ed (we were subjected to some rather awful 'educational' videos from time to time- one, I remember, had the comedian Sinbad dressed as a giant condom), there was a very real result in the number of teen pregnancies, one of my close friends got knocked up in ninth grade (she had the kid, but basically her parents raised it, I got an update on her situation not long ago from a mutual acquaintance, and let me tell you, the way that child is going to grow up is neither stable, nor well loved), and number of my other friends engaged in all kinds of risky behaviors including substituting condoms with saran wrap. Clearly, there was a lack of thorough instruction on the matter, as well as a lack of access to preventative measures.

In hindsight I am rather glad everyone in high school thought I was a lesbian.