Reason Morning Links: Walpingate, Climate Change Vote, More Protests in Iran, and Paying Teenagers Not to Get Pregnant

- Fact-checking Obama's health care plan.

- House climate change and energy bill comes to a vote today.

- More protests in Iran, and more crushing of dissent.

- Senate Republicans pressing Obama on fired Americorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin.

- North Carolina program pays teenage girls to not get pregnant.

Comments

[Xeones]

Good news, Epi!

[Xeones]

? North Carolina program pays teenage girls to not get pregnant.

There's already a program that basically does that, though. What is it called again? Oh yeah -- LIFE.

[hmm]

That was a pretty soft ball fact check.

[John-David]

But not everyone thinks paying kids to stay childless is the right way to lower the teen pregnancy rate. They say the program sends mixed messages, specifically to parents, that incentivizing good behavior is the way to go.

Oh NOES!

[FrBunny]

Dr. Hazel Brown, co-director of the program, said six girls of the 125 who have been enrolled for six months or longer have gotten pregnant or otherwise dropped out since it began in 1997.

This is a big story all over the Intertubes. Why now?

[Focus on the Family]

Paying teenagers not to get pregnant is clearly more liberal social engineering.

[National Organization for Wome]

Will they also pay boys to not get pregnant? If not this is clearly sexist.

[Pro Libertate]

Cracked addressed Bay's "directing" recently.

[hmm]

If the incentive works. I'm personally a fan of negative reinforcement along with positive reinforcement.

[hmm]

Will they also pay boys to not get pregnant? If not this is clearly sexist.

It's run by a state university. They are already sexist, racist, classist, social engineering assclowns. So no, no they won't.

[Kyle Jordan]

Say whatever you want, but The Rock is a great movie.

P.P.S. In case anyone replies to this, their responses will almost assuredly be ad homs delivered through sockpuppets, thereby conceding my points and showing the cowardly, childish, anti-intellectual nature of libertarians.

[robc]

I could have used $3k for not knocking any chicks up while age 12-18. It was easy, due to involuntary abstinence.

[Xeones]

Shut the fuck up, Kyle Jordan.

[Kyle Jordan]

You know, I'd be willing to bet that many of those 125 enrollees are fantastic and sucking cock.

[Pro Libertate]

The Rock is a what? Is your power ring on the fritz?

[Kyle Jordan]

*fantastic at

Truth hurts, don't it X? 😉

[FrBunny]

Bay says he's sick of receiving negative reviews from critics who dislike his movie-making style and is determined to move away from the genre. He says, "It's easy to go shoot an art movie in a winery in the South of France. But people have no idea how hard it is to create something like Transformers. They review me before they've even seen the movie."

Fuck you til you die, Bay.

[Xeones]

Truth hurts, don't it X?

You seem to be pretty fantastic at sucking Michael Bay's cock, yo.

[Pro-lifer!]

What if an 18 year old wants to get married and have kids? It's not unheard of. Will she loose her dollar a day?

[Jaime Summer]

What?? Paying stupid teenagers not to get pregnanat? As if they arent lazy enough as it is!

RT
http://www.anon-tools.tk

[Spartacus]

That was a pretty soft ball fact check.

That was my initial reaction. Then I realized how few facts there actually were to check, and I decided to give them a break. This time.

[Tricky Prickears]

To participate, girls must have never been pregnant, be enrolled in school, have a desire to attend college and have had a sister who gave birth before age 18.

Sounds like they're stacking the deck towards success. Anything to help prevent unwanted teen pregnancy is a step in the right direction. But maybe first, they should provide real sex ed, not abstinence only, and access to effective birth control.

[Tricky Prickears]

But maybe first, they should provide real sex ed, not abstinence only, and access to effective birth control.

Sorry, in a rush here. I wasn't referring to the program, but rather some of the public policies associated with teen pregnancy.

[robc]

Who doesnt have access to effective birth control? Do they card at Walgreens?

[Kyle Jordan]

"You seem to be pretty fantastic at sucking Michael Bay's cock, yo."

Damn. There's some hardcore Bay hate here. Though, most of it's deserved.

The Rock still rules though. Ring's at 84% charge.

[proud libitard]

Please, oh please would you reporter dweebs quit calling every scandal and possible misdeed X-gate. Damn, it's fucking annoying...

[robc]

proud libtard,

You are about 25 years late in your complaint. I was making the same complaint during "Irangate", which, fotunately, is more well known as the Iran-Contra Scandal.

[R C Dean]

Though, to be fair, there's an awful lot of smoke around the firing and limitations of authority on various IGs. By my count, there are at least 4 IGs who have either been terminated or told they don't have jurisdiction over major spending initiatives.

Once you remember that Obama is a graduate of the Daley School of Government (as is Rahm Emmanuel), it makes a lot more sense.

Try to imagine the media shitstorm that would have fallen on W if this had happened on his watch, and tell me the major media outlets aren't in the tank for Obama.

[John Thacker]

Try to imagine the media shitstorm that would have fallen on W if this had happened on his watch, and tell me the major media outlets aren't in the tank for Obama.

What, you mean like firing Attorneys General because of either disagreeing about priorities or politics? That one also seemed to get more attention on Reason, for that matter. (Though Reason also covered it because other people were covering it.)

Presidents like untrammeled power in the Executive Branch. The last President to significantly reduce Presidential power may have been Ford, and only then perhaps because he had no choice.

[Tulpa]

Con Air was good too.

[John Thacker]

But maybe first, they should provide real sex ed, not abstinence only, and access to effective birth control.

Abstinence only sex ed doesn't work. Neither does "real sex ed," though. It's a bunch of complaining about practically nothing.

When I say "doesn't work," studies have shown that both kinds can do a good job of informing kids about STDs and pregnancy and contraception and the odds of various things. (One of the big "abstinence only doesn't work" studies showed that students who got an abstinence-only program knew significantly more than those who didn't have any sex ed, but having such a program in addition to other sex ed made no difference.) They just don't do anything when it comes to modifying behavior.

[SugarFree]

Con Air was good too.

GO FROM THIS PLACE AND NEVER RETURN!

[Tulpa]

RAT Board spokesman Edward Pound also refuted Grassley's criticism. "Earl Devaney is not going to tell an inspector general not to investigate something," Pound said in reference to the board's chairman, a widely respected former Interior Department inspector general who helped expose the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

I would be worried about IGs having to ask political appointees for permission to investigate stuff, but we've got The Right People in charge now, so it's OK!

[Tulpa]

Speaking by phone from the conference, one board member described Walpin as "idiosyncratic in kind of a disruptive way."

"He was off either on these strange crusades or he was off in the 17th file drawer of a nonprofit in Wichita trying to figure out how they spent their money," said the board member, granted anonymity to speak frankly on the matter.

Yeah, I'm sure this guy/gal's bosses in the administration are going to have a fit when they find out someone's echoing their position.

[Rhywun]

Has the anonymity bot ever won the thread before...?

[Xeones]

Shut the fuck up, Tulpa. About Con Air, i mean.

[Xeones]

Has the anonymity bot ever won the thread before...?

Goddammit, i wasn't ready for the Singularity today.

[Kyle Jordan]

There's a post in one of the other threads by the bot that's pretty good too. Whoever made this one needs to start working on the programming for Living Doll robot a la BuffyBot from Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

[Xeones]

There's a post in one of the other threads by the bot that's pretty good too.

The very best was when the bot called LoneWacko a "rancid piece of dogshit." It may have been a spoof, but goddamn.

[Kyle Jordan]

"The very best was when the bot called LoneWacko a "rancid piece of dogshit." It may have been a spoof, but goddamn."

Holy shit! I missed that one damnit!

Dude, I think Skynet's online and like visiting Hit & Run.

[Naga Sadow]

Nothing but undying hatred will be tolerated when refering to the anonymity dude. You hear me! Undying hatred!!!

[Pro Libertate]

Con Air? Man, that really sucked.

[Ten Years After]

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal.

In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said school officials violated the law with their search of Savana Redding in the rural eastern Arizona town of Safford.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/49089496.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ

[Naga Sadow]

Con Air. Accent on the "con". I want my money back, dammit!

[Ten Years After]

"Buffy The Vampire Slayer"

I would so fuck Willow!

[R C Dean]

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal.

Thomas dissented. He goes down a notch in my book.

[squarooticus]

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal.

Freaky that Thomas was the dissenter in this decision.

[Kyle Jordan]

"I would so fuck Willow!"

Yeah Willow's my first choice from that show followed by Faith, then Buffy.

Mmmmm, WillowBot...

[Naga Sadow]

I'm concerned by the straight men who know the characters from a chick show. Apparently "straight" will have be used relatively here. 😉

[Kyle Jordan]

"Thomas warned that the majority's decision could backfire. "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he said. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."

So, ol' Clarence thinks it's ok to up and fiddle a little cooter in order to find some pills or maybe some pot?

Fuck you, asshole.

Usually he's got a pretty ok position but I'm very much at odds with this one.

[SugarFree]

I would fuck Willow. Alyson Hannigan is another matter.

1080i is not kind to her on How I Met Your Mother.

[Naga Sadow]

How I Met Your Mother??? What?

[John Thacker]

Pretty much what I expected from Justice Thomas. If you grant the right to search, why draw a line there? 8-1 seems to paper things over a bit; several split rulings. To quote:

The decision below is affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded. Justice Souter writes for the Court. Justice Stevens filed a partial dissent joined by Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg filed an opinion concurring and dissenting in part. Justice Thomas concurs in part and dissents in part. The Court held that the strip search did violate the Constitution but it wasn't clear that the violation was established at the time of this incident.

Compare to today's Confrontation Clause case, Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, where the Apprendi 5 of Scalia, Thomas, Souter, Ginsburg, and Stevens said that your right to face an accuser in person absolutely includes the right to face a laboratory analyst who produced a report, if you so wish. The other four, Breyer, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, were willing to "balance" that right away due to pragmatism, but since it's written there in the text, Scalia and Thomas wouldn't.

[John Thacker]

Of course, the 8-1 is because some agreed that the strip search violated the Constitution but thought that the violation was established at the time, etc. So the concur and dissent in parts were on different parts.

[John Thacker]

Justice Thomas's position was brief. If you ban searches, that's one thing. But if you allow searches but specifically ban searching one hiding place, that's retarded. It would make more sense to just ban all searches.

[Ten Years After]

"I'm concerned by the straight men who know the characters from a chick show."

Back when I was married, my wife watched the Buffy so I watched it with her. She also was a big fan of Bay Watch.

Those were her only endearing qualities; they proved to be inadequate.

[Ten Years After]

http://www.2flashgames.com/2fgkjn134kjlh1cfn81vc34/flash/f-Alyson-Hannigan-2659.jpg

[hamilton]

Continuing on the Supreme Court rulings today, has someone told Radley that Scalia (!) mentiones the possibility that forensic scientists might be under pressure to deliver results favorable to the prosecution, and must stand for cross-examination? It's in the Melendez-Diaz opinion.

[Mike]

As much as I hate to do it, I give kudos to Stevens and Ginsburg for being the only two justices who thought that the school officials should be held personally liable. If I were that girl's father, an "oops, sorry--we won't do that again" wouldn't quite cut it.

[ChicagoTom]

Thomas dissented. He goes down a notch in my book.

I started reading his dissent...it made me sick. I couldn't get past the 2nd page.

[robc]

Okay, the radio just a second ago called it a 9-0 decision.

Im going with you guys but it seems confusing.

Issues all over the place on this one, I guess.

[Frank -n- Weiner]

Neda Soltan's family 'forced out of home' by Iranian authorities:

The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world.

Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/24/neda-soltan-iran-family-forced-out

[Tulpa]

I didn't say Con Air was a wonderfully edifying film, but it was fun to watch.

"Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he said. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."

Unless he's talking about Butthash, I think that's supposed to be "secret".

[Pro Libertate]

Tulpa,

No, it wasn't.

[Tulpa]

I don't get how anyone can fail to like a flick featuring Steve Buscemi holding a doll while singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands". And Chief O'Brien chuckling while machine-gunning a helpless civilian aircraft.

[Pro Libertate]

I didn't even like it a little bit.