Duck and Cover!

Fallon Resigns As Mideast Military Chief
The Navy admiral in charge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan announced Tuesday that he is resigning over press reports portraying him as opposed to President Bush’s Iran policy.

Adm. William J. Fallon, one of the most experienced officers in the U.S. military, said the reports were wrong but had become a distraction hampering his efforts in the Middle East. Fallon’s area of responsibility includes Iran and stretches from Central Asia across the Middle East to the Horn of Africa.

“I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility,” Fallon said, and he regretted “the simple perception that there is.” He was in Iraq when he made the statement.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a Pentagon news conference that he accepted Fallon’s request to resign and retire from the Navy, agreeing that the Iran issue had become a distraction. But Gates said repeatedly that he believed talk of Fallon opposing Bush on Iran was mistaken.

fox-fallon

“Admiral William Fallon shakes his head slowly, and his eyes say, These guys have no idea how much worse it could get for them. I am the reasonable one.”

Hold on to your seats folks.
will isolate it soon

1 in 4 US Teens Has a STD

CHICAGO (AP) — At least one in four teenage American girls has a sexually transmitted disease, suggests a first-of-its-kind federal study that startled some adolescent-health experts.

Some doctors said the numbers might be a reflection of both abstinence-only sex education and teens’ own sense of invulnerabilty. Because some sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility and cancer, U.S. health officials called for better screening, vaccination and prevention.

Only about half of the girls in the study acknowledged having sex. Some teens define sex as only intercourse, yet other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some diseases.

Among those who admitted having sex, the rate was even more disturbing — 40 percent had an STD.

“This is pretty shocking,” said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital in New York.

“To talk about abstinence is not a bad thing,” but teen girls — and boys too — need to be informed about how to protect themselves if they do have sex, Alderman said.

The overall STD rate among the 838 girls in the study was 26 percent, which translates to more than 3 million girls nationwide, researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. They released the results Tuesday at an STD prevention conference in Chicago.

“Those numbers are certainly alarming,” said sex education expert Nora Gelperin, who works with a teen-written Web site called sexetc.org. She said they reflect “the sad state of sex education in our country.”

“Sexuality is still a very taboo subject in our society,” she said. “Teens tell us that they can’t make decisions in the dark and that adults aren’t properly preparing them to make responsible decisions.”

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the study shows that “the national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure, and teenage girls are paying the real price.”

Similar claims were made last year when the government announced the teen birth rate rose between 2005 and 2006, the first increase in 15 years.

std

Stagnation?

Economic stagnation, often called simply stagnation, is a prolonged period of slow economic growth (traditionally measured in terms of the GDP growth). Under some definitions, “slow” means significantly slower than potential growth as estimated by experts in macroeconomics. Under other definitions, growth less than 2-3% per year is a sign of stagnation.

The term bears negative connotations, but slow economic growth is not always the fault of economic policymakers. For example, potential growth may be slowed down by catastrophic or demographic reasons.

Economic stagnation theories originated during the Great Depression and came to be associated with early Keynesian economics and Harvard economics professor Alvin Hansen.

Other terms related to economic dynamics are

wiki

Ouch!

When the Mighty Fall

This is the time when you find out who your real friends are.

Al Franken’s Main Opponent Drops Senate Bid

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Al Franken’s main competition for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate dropped out Monday, giving the comedian-turned-candidate a major boost.

Franken and lawyer Mike Ciresi were vying for the party’s endorsement to take on Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in November. Coleman is seeking a second term.

Franken has raised millions more in campaign funds and lined up most of the important union endorsements, but Ciresi’s impressive resume as a trial attorney and personal wealth positioned him as a potential spoiler to Franken’s ambition.

Ciresi’s statement that he was dropping out indicated he didn’t think he could catch up to Franken’s lead in rounding up the support of Democratic delegates, who will confer their endorsement at the state party convention in June. Both Franken and Ciresi vowed not to run in the primary election without the party endorsement.

“In my judgment, continuing the endorsement race would only lead to an unnecessary floor fight. It is time to step aside,” Ciresi’s statement said.

Franken issued a statement, praising Ciresi for a “well-fought campaign,” citing his “passion for social justice, his command of the issues facing our nation, and his devotion to the people of Minnesota…”

Franken