A rise in teenage pregnancy rates

for the first time since 1991

seems to have re-awakened Americans' fears

over the problem of early childbearing

This latest panic reflects the nation's

dogged denial about the role

of sexuality in adolescence

   more »

Keywords: teenage, sexuality, sex, pregnancy, repression, denial

The image of an out-of-control Clinton is so compelling that it also serves as an amplifier for whatever point he is making. Many pundits have suggested, wrongly, that Clinton's most heated remarks are aberrational.

In fact, every tantrum so far has occurred whilst sounding a vital campaign talking point - the notion that supporting Obama is a huge gamble, that the young senator's appeal is fundamentally fake.

That a Clinton loss in the Nevada caucuses - widely, though incorrectly, predicted at the time the former president reared up in Oakland - should be seen as insignificant.

The sheer spectacle of Clinton's explosions is so over-powering that the media reports that inevitably follow are dominated by what he said and how he said it. Questions about whether his statements are true can get pushed to the sidelines.   more »

Tired of hearing complaints about injustices that, Will maintains, don't exist? Take an Obama pill - it'll absolve you, says Will.

Believing he is presenting a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of "race neutrality," George F. Will actually provides insider testimony on what is behind mass white enthusiasm for Obama.

For them, he represents the hope that this one Negro will absolve white guilt, or he at least won't ask anyone, or any entity ( government) to take responsibility for racism.

Though he is black, Obama reassures America and its rulers that race is no longer an issue.   more »

For 25 years or more, the great and the good of the financial markets have been chipping away at the constraints that were put on them the last time they brought the global economy to its knees, ably aided and abetted by politicians, the international institutions and a battery of think tanks supported by corporate interests.

Get the government off our backs, they said. Let the markets work, they said. Regulation is the enemy of innovation and efficiency, they said. Politicians duly obliged and now, according to George Soros, there is a systemic problem the like of which we have not seen for 60 years.

And now what do we find? Those self-same financial institutions, having made a colossal mess of things, are relying on the forces of darkness to bail them out. We're hurting, they say. Our losses are enormous, they say. We're too big to fail, they say.

Sadly, the latter point is absolutely true. The reason the Federal Reserve announced an emergency cut in interest rates this week was that it feared a global crash in stock markets would clobber Wall Street just at the moment the dire financial consequences of the sub-prime fiasco were becoming evident.   more »

McCain has distinguished himself most as an über-hawk on foreign policy. To give a brief smorgasbord of his views: at a recent rally, he sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann". He says North Korea should be threatened with "extinction".

McCain has mostly opposed using US power for humanitarian goals, jeering at proposals to intervene in Rwanda or Bosnia – but he is very keen to use it for great power imperialism.

He learnt this philosophy from his father and his granddad Slew, who fought in the Philippine wars at the turn of the 20th century, where he was part of a mission to crush the local resistance to the US invasion.

They did it by forcing the entire population from their homes at gunpoint into "protection zones", and gunning down anybody over the age of ten who was found outside them. Today, McCain dreamily describes this as "an exotic adventure" which his grandfather "generally enjoyed".   more »