"A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well..."

.


"A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit. A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states."
-- Vaclav Havel


In the news today:

Levee breaks among West Coast storms.


Hmm.
Maybe... just maybe... we should have spent some of the 173.6 billion dollars* we spent of the "Global War on Terror" (just in 2007) on, oh, I don't know, our own country's physical infrastructure and properties, and FORTIFIED SOME LEVEES, since that seems to be such a recurring problem.

Maybe those numbers are too big to even comprehend! Let's take it down to Sesame-Street-level, and work with some much more managable, smaller numbers instead.

OK: What do you get when you add 20 million dollars to 5 million dollars? 25 million! That's right. And that's the increase in budget the United States Federal government thought was appropriate to allocate to Title V Abstinence (only) Education Program for 2008.

And what is 25 + 44 + 49 + 50 +50 = ?

Well, each of those numbers represents a year from 2008 to 2012, i.e., 25 = Title V Abstinence Education budget for 2008. 44 = Title V's 2009 budget. 49? 2010. And 50? 2011 and 2012, respectively.

That equation also represents a total of 218 million dollars, the cumulative federal budget for Title V from 2008 to 2012.

And what is 50 - 5 = ? 45. That's 45, the proposed increase by 2012 in millions of dollars for Title V's budget.

Just for clarification, that's 50 million dollars spent on programs defined as such:

"an educational or motivational program that:

1. Has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
2. Teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school age children;
3. Teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
4. Teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;
5. Teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
6. Teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society;
7. Teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability to sexual advances; and
8. Teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.”

You can read about the government's website on Title V (510) here. I haven't linked to the actual Title; I'm leaving it up to you to explore and try and find it yourselves. Good luck with that. Personally, I'd start by looking under the Sparkling!-Wedding!-Ring!-Icon. I wish that was a joke, but its not.

See? I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

If you have the time (which you do, considering you're probably sitting around, wasting your life not living up to "the expected standard of human sexual activity" in a "mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage"), or, if for whatever reason you would really like a migraine, I recommend reading through Title V 510 yourself.

Highlights:
-"Do not promote contraception and/or condom use."


To end on a ... I was about to say lighter note, but an article about death isn't really lighter. How bout: To end on a much-creepier-and-strange-note:
Cat has disturbing and unearthily weird ability to predict death.
(via CNN via C. Murphy. Italic note obviously mine.)





(*President's Budget for the Fiscal Year of 2008 can be found here. If you can somehow struggle through all 52 pages of it [approx. 12 of which are ... blank], you can check these numbers for yourself.)