Guttmacher “research”: no logic allowed
Got a note from Dr. Michael New this morning:
A couple weeks ago something exciting happened. The Alan Guttmacher Institute attacked my recent Family Research Council study which demonstrated the effectiveness of pro-life parental involvement laws. This means I am making all the right enemies.
Their criticisms were not exactly persuasive. In fact, they even cite a 2006 New England Journal of Medicine study which very strongly supports my position.
Read New’s full response here.
My first thought: If Guttmacher and the abortion industry don’t think parental notification laws work, why fight them?
Guttmacher admitted teen abortions were down but explained…
[T]here is strong evidence that the decline in minors’ abortion rates is largely the result of fewer teen pregnancies, which, in turn, reflect better contraceptive use among adolescents.
Of course Guttmacher would say that. It’s the research arm of Planned Parenthood, which makes much, if not most, of its $1 billion annual income from contraceptive sales.
But Guttmacher reported in 2006:
The proportion of U.S. teens who had received any formal instruction about birth control methods declined sharply between 1995 and 2002, while the proportion who had received only information about abstinence more than doubled to more than one in five….
Drops in teen abortion rates are due in large part to common sense: encouraging abstinence and forcing the involvement of parents in abortion decisions.
On that point, Guttmacher made New’s point in its report, referring to the aforementioned NEJM study, which…
… found that in the period immediately following implementation of a TX parental notification law, the abortion rate among teens aged 15-17 within the state fell more sharply than it did among 18-year-olds, who were not subject to the law.
The authors concluded that the law was associated with reduced abortion rates among minors and an increase in the birth rate among older minors.
However, given the design of this study, causality cannot be proven. If the law has had this effect, it likely reflects the fact that all states bordering TX, with the exception of NM, also have a mandatory parental involvement law, which makes it extremely difficult for TX minors to seek an abortion elsewhere.
Guttmacher was trying to say TX’s parental involvement law didn’t account for the drop in TX abortions. Rather, parental involvement laws in states surrounding TX did.
Um….
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Guttmacher has both flawed studies and flawed conclusions.
As dishonest and decieptful as the pro abortion people are, do they think they can study the impact of wht goes on in neighboring states and draw conclusions from a study that can’t pass the blind test? I am sure running red lights laws in nearby states effect the amount of people that run a red light in Texas.
I’m dizzy with all of the circular logic.
It’s almost funny, isn’t it? The proaborts are falling all over themselves trying to explain why they oppose such laws, and at the same time saying that they don’t actually do anything. Oh, what a tangled wed we weave…..
Very true.
When you’re wrong about something, I guess it’s better to be evasive in your arguments. Harder to hit a moving target.
And the most compelling arguement advanced by abortion advocates: ‘Jill Stanek should stop doing whatever it is she is doing because it is counterproductive and it is only ‘hurting the anti-choice movement.’
—————————————————-
The concern of the ‘dead babies r us’ lobby is so disingenuous. They want Jill to be successful about as much as I want the 0’bama to be successful.
yor bro ken
The,
‘circular reasoning works because circular reasoning works because circular reasoning…..’
reminds of the 45 rpm vinyl records that would get stuck in one spot and endlessly repeat a phrase from a song, until you gave the turntable a gentle bump.
Maybe the death advocates would benefit from a ‘gentle bump’. Might be entertaining to hear a new mantra. The current ones are getting a little old.
But like they say down in Texas, ‘Dance with the girl that brung ya’, or ‘don’go a changin’ horses in the middle of the stream.’
yor bro ken
Wait a minute!!
I thought teens would be dying like flies from illegal abortions resulting from parental consent laws.
Statistics on teen deaths from illegal abortion please.
From: Jack Thomas
Ready for a shock? Below is an article from the London Times about our military. Interesting, it is! Our media coverage is shameful!
-==-=-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-==-
Winning Isn’t News
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
Iraq:What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn’t telll the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we’ve defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq .
London’s Sunday Times called it ‘the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.’ A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.
The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush’s surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering.
We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy.
Al-Qaida’s loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there.
Now, in Operation Lion’s Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.
Sunday Times (London) reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul, found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside.
Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government has achieved ‘satisfactory’ progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks ‘a big change for the better from a year ago.’
Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates ,which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad, an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq.
But where are the headlines and the front-page st ories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, ‘the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks ‘that signaled political progress.’
The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media don’t seem to consider this historic event a big story.
Copyright 2008 Investor’s Business Daily. All Rights Reserved.
Addendum: The reason you haven’t seen this on American television or read about it in the American press is simple–journalism is ‘dead’ in this country. They are controlled by Liberal Democrats who would rather see our troops defeated than recognize a successful Republican initiated response to 9/11.
Media probably were holding ’til after coronation of BHO in order to give him credit.
God bless our troops, God bless our current President and God bless the U.S.A.
Credit Where Credit Is Due Department:
Back on September 8, yllas said:
Since you think, you can think logically about any matter in your life, I shall prophesize,predict, inform you that the price of petroleum products will retreat to historic lows within 3 to 5 years.
Another words, the price of gasoline, which is what this election is all about, will be back to $1.50US., or lower.
I didn’t hold yllas to the “historic lows” – but, here we are but a scant 3+ months later and today in Georgia I saw regular gas for $1.479.
Well now that was one heck of a prediction. Amazing….
I found out today there’s a term for the sort of thing the AGI is doing: Semmelweis reflex. Which seems and unfair bit of nominclature, since it wasn’t Semmelweis who had the reflex; it was the people who couldn’t hear him because what he said went so counter to what they already believed.
Well, Mary, I don’t have statistics on teens dying from illegal abortions, but I have an example: Teresa Causy. Of course, she (and her mother, who brought her for the abortion) thought it was one of the Safe and Legal kind, but still….
Then there’s Jennifer Suddeth. Though she was 18 years old and living with her Significant Other and again they both thought that she was having one of the safe, legal kind of abortion. But the state prosecuted the doctor and California counted it as an illegal abortion death.
Though these, of course, aren’t the kind of illegal abortions (or, evidently the type of teens) the AGU gets its knickers in a twist over.
Abortion is not killing because the womans choice to live life as she determines is best and that the baby is certainly not a life when the the fetus is an unwanted by-product of sex without procreative intent.
Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that life can only exist inside the mother’s womb if the fetus is wanted or until after it leaves the mother’s womb and takes it’s firat breath outside of it’s mother’s body in which case it is considered alive unless it was supposed to be killed before being delivered in which case the mother’s intent still determines wether or not the delivered fetus is actually a life.
This is kinda fun. You can vent all your sarcasm by spewing pro-abort arguments and talking points as if they were logical.
The concern of the ‘dead babies r us’ lobby is so disingenuous. They want Jill to be successful about as much as I want the 0’bama to be successful.
yor bro ken
Posted by: kbhvac at December 22, 2008 5:39 PM
You don’t want Obama to be successful? You’d LIKE it if the President of your country failed? Jeeze, he’s not going to do anything to get kicked out of office. You have the next four years… you’d LIKE them to be awful? Please tell me you’re not American..
“truthseeker”, why don’t you go live up to your name? If there is no living fetus, there can be no abortion. In fact, a doctor can be sued for fraud and lose his license to practice at all if he makes a habit of selling abortions to women who do not have fetuses living in their wombs.
Hi Josephine,
Personally I would like to see Obama’s plans for FOCA fail. I would like to see his plans to undo all of the prolife legislation in the US FAIL.
It is estimated that if Obama succeeds in his plans for abortion, the rate of abortions will increase by 125,000 a year!! How is that rare? How is that “working with the prolife community?” How do you reduce abortions by promoting abortions?
Christina, Truthseeker wasn’t being serious… he was poking fun at the non-logic of pro-abortion arguments. :-)
Truthseeker: This is kinda fun. You can vent all your sarcasm by spewing pro-abort arguments and talking points as if they were logical.
Rather, you can avoid the real argument by pretending.
Posted by: Josephine at December 23, 2008 1:48 AM
‘You don’t want Obama to be successful?’
‘Please tell me you’re not American.’
———————————————————-
What she said!
Posted by: Carla at December 23, 2008 7:13 AM
‘Hi Josephine,
Personally I would like to see Obama’s plans for FOCA fail. I would like to see his plans to undo all of the prolife legislation in the US FAIL.
It is estimated that if Obama succeeds in his plans for abortion, the rate of abortions will increase by 125,000 a year!! How is that rare? How is that “working with the prolife community?” How do you reduce abortions by promoting abortions?’
——————————————————–
I only want the 0’bama (pbuh) to do well where it ‘benefits’ America, and not as the 0’bama (pbuh) or you or your ‘dead babies r us’ crowd define ‘benefit’, but as the One who gives us breath and life defines ‘benefit’. (Hint: the ‘One’ is not the (0’bama [pbuh]. The 0’bama (pbuh) is the ‘zero’, zeta, nada, nothing. He only offers death.
The ‘One’ continually offers you not just life, but eternally abundant life, but you continually choose death as embodied by the ‘zero’ 0’bama (pbuh).
I am citizen of the kingdom of God first and of Texas second and of the United States third. And unlike the 0’bama (pbuh) I was born into all three.
I hope I disappointed you.
Remember, the Ditzi Chicks were not too excited about ‘W’ being from Texas or the USA.
yor bro ken
Posted by: Josephine at December 23, 2008 1:48 AM
‘You’d LIKE it if the President of your country failed?’
——————————————————-
Actually, I loved it when ‘W’s immigration policy failed.
I loved it when Bush’s selection of Harriet Miers to the SCOTUS crashed and burned and failed.
I was not pleased with George’s decision to invade Iraq, but I am pleasantly surprised with the present situation and the apparent future for that people of Iraq.
The 0’bama (pbuh), his vacuuous nothingness, is NOT president yet.
He is simply an unemployed politcian expectantly looking for someone’s pocket to pick.
By the way, we are are ‘citizens’ in a constitutional republic, not the ‘subjects’ of a monarchy. Dissent is not only allowed, it is encouraged.
yor bro ken
“My first thought: If Guttmacher and the abortion industry don’t think parental notification laws work, why fight them?”
what do you mean by “work?” Stop teens from getting abortions or mandate that parents are involved in the process?
Posted by: kbhvac at December 23, 2008 11:58 AM
‘I am a citizen of the kingdom of God first and of Texas second and of the United States third. And unlike the 0’bama (pbuh) I was born into all three.’
—————————————————–
Unlike the 0’bama (pbuh) I have a birth ceritificate for the second two and I am more than willing to release it as well as my college records and my medical records. I have nothing to hide.
I can also demonstrate proof of the first citizenship and I am willing to do so.
Is the 0’bama (pbuh) willing to do the same?
Any ‘committed christian’, as the 0’bama (pbuh)claims to be, should be eager to provide his bona fides when asked.
yor bro ken
Posted by: Josephine at December 23, 2008 1:48 AM
‘Please tell me you’re not American.’
—————————————————-
Josephine, here is an ‘American’ who sees things the way the 0’bama (pbuh) does. Maybe this will make you feel better.
‘Scott Lee Peterson is an American who was convicted of the murder of his wife, Laci Peterson, who was eight months pregnant at the time, and their unborn son, Conner. Peterson’s case dominated the American media for many months.
In 2005, Peterson was sentenced to death by lethal injection.’
Maybe this is what the 0’bama (pbuh) meant when he referred to being ‘punished by a baby’.
Evidently mr. Peterson had not heard of the ‘no child left behind’ strategy.
The second victim is what made him elilgible for the death penaly.
Scott Peterson was ‘desperate’.
How ‘desperate’ was he?
He was so ‘desperate’ he threw out the mama, as well as the [human embryo/fetus] baby, with the bath water.
I believe Mr. Peterson was convicted of a double homicide.
A jury of former embryos/fetuses/prenatal children deemed him ineligible for the daily double, two for one deal.
We humans are stupid, but occasionally we swerve into the truth in such a way that we cannot avoid or overlook it.
If Mr. Peterson had half a brain, in addition to having no heart, he would have performed an abortion on his wife, in which she would unfortunately died from the complications, and he would have only been charged with manslaughter and attempting to practice medicine without a license.
yor bro ken
I didn’t hold yllas to the “historic lows” – but, here we are but a scant 3+ months later and today in Georgia I saw regular gas for $1.479.
Well now that was one heck of a prediction. Amazing….
Posted by: Doug at December 22, 2008 8:10 PM
With a flair of my Elvis cape, and a doff of my mitre, Thank ya, thank ya very much.
What is amazing, is the party that always said Republicans are for ” corporate welfare”, are now being replaced by the Demoncrats trying to save those same evil corporations from fiancial disaster.
It’s trickle down economics with no questions asked.
As for petrol prices, Jimma Carter, should have never stuck his nose where a cartel controls how much he shivers in the White House. Now he thinks being a dhimmi will influence his ability to make others change their murderous attitiude towards the USA.
As for financial matters, from Silverado Savings(the lost Bush boy) to the BCCI failure, where Clinton met Pappy Bush, one should have known something was going to go down with the son in office.
truthseeker, those are all good points, but please do some of us a favor by putting a “sarcasm off” symbol at the end of them next time, okay?
Holy crow! Did Yllas just make a coherent post?
I do believe hell (should it exist) just froze over- as evidenced by the fact it’s frakin’ cold outside.
I wrote a review of this inanity…
Its Christmas break and I’ve had a little free time, so this is sort of long. Sorry! Hopefully it is as informative as it is long, and I appreciate those that relish such an essay. I would not burden you with this without reason however. I expect that our trolls will be brandishing and invoking as much soon, if they haven’t already. I anticipate a need for this.
As we near certain passage of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) with our pending democratic elect leadership, the extant parental involvement laws of 36 states, restricting and discouraging legal abortion for minors, will likely fall with renewed court challenges. As a result, Prolifers have a renewed zeal, and Dr. Michael J. New of the CATO institute is now engaged in a tit for tat back and forth, championing the prolife legislation which has been manifest in this dark period with his curious version of science. Answering that tit for tat is real science and the Guttmacher institute.
A little back ground first.
Dr. New has a Phd in political science, and as far as I can tell, he has only one or two peer reviewed publications. The rest of his “research” has only been disseminated via organizations with an overt conservative bias favoring their political ideologies, and not objectivity or quality science (e.g. Family Research Council, Heritage Foundation, CATO institute, etc…).
The tit for tat started with his non-peer reviewed research finding that prolife legislations, particularly parental involvement laws (parental notification and/or consents) have “reduced the *rates* of abortion” amongst minors, and that it is not an artifact of overall “changing values” amongst society. In other words, prolife legislation passed with a wave of family-values brand of conservatism is solely responsible for reduced abortion rates amongst minors, and it is curiously not caused by the wave of family-values brand of conservatism itself. I have no idea why he would divorce prolife legislation from the prolife movement.
Dr. New’s “research,” in its earliest manifestation, can be found here and this is where I started my own research:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/CDA07-01.cfm
Having examined New’s “research” before reading anyone else’s account of it, I find it humorously flawed in numerous respects, although I have not arrived at a conclusion counter to his. I am open to the possibility that prolife legislation may have had some impact, although I think it’s seriously foolish to identify it as the ultimate factor when there are so many unstudied factors (e.g. a precipitous decline in teen pregnancies over the same time period, co-occurring with the availability and the acceptability of teens using birth control pills).
Probably the most humorous aspect of New’s effort is that he illustrates a flaky grasp of statistics when he switches dependent variables, independent variables, and secondary corrections. Ostensibly, he first identifies abortion rates as his dependent variable in his methods section, but then identifies his independent variables (parental involvement laws) amongst his binary covariates (a covariate is a secondary correction for bias), and then in his appendix table of results he lists the independent variables as the dependent variables, in an incoherent table which bears no resemblance to those published in any peer reviewed journals and nor does he provide the requisite statistical values (e.g. P-value) such that others may judge the statistical power of the effort. His methods are a little vague, and one wonders if he inverted variables because they violate the assumptions of regression analysis, particularly independence and homoscedasity.
If I had to guess, I think he was just slapping the variables into various statistics programs, and moving them around, until he got something which seems to support his case, but with no understanding of what he did and if it it was meaninful. I’ve done as much myself…. and sort of a compulsive disorder amongst scientists, but most of us actually try to make sense of what we did and whether or not it is valid.
What is forehead-slappingly stupid about his effort is that he has not taken into account the rate of teen pregnancy. The rate of abortion is in fact dependent upon the rate of pregnancies more so than anything else. It’s stupid obvious! Additionally, he does not actually compare the rates of abortion, or pregnancies, between the states with parental involvement laws vs. the few states which have no such laws (6). If his conclusion is that parental involvement laws are way good… you’d think he’d arrive at that conclusion by comparing against states which have no laws. He didn’t do this. Ironically, such a comparison probably would have had the appearance of advancing his case, as these few liberal states have very low teen pregnancy rates, and the countering conservative states are ranked highest for teen pregnancy, thus affecting an apparent abortion rate differential in favor of prolife legislations because a reciprocal trade off with the acceptability of abortions would likely be the case.
In short, I could do better job making a case for prolife legislation.
The scientific opposition to parental involvement, such as the peer reviewed publications of T. Joyce, produce similar indications of reduced abortion rates, however he cautions regarding causality and in fact investigates “misconception bias.” Additionally, researchers consistently find that there is also a net effect in which minors increasingly have more complicated and riskier abortions later in pregnancy, having had to arrange to go to other states and/or endure a court by-pass process which takes 22 days at best.
There was sort of a wave of bloggers citing Dr. New’s research of late, preceeding the elections this fall, and the Guttmacher Institute was apparently compelled to refute it this fall. Their rebuttal can be found here:
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/evidencecheck/2008/10/16/Parental_Involvement2008.pdf
They do not elaborate on Dr. New’s flaws, so I have here. They do a better job providing the science, so I have not elaborated here, for the sake of much needed brevity.
Dr. New fired back this last week, rallying Jill Stanek and the National Review to his defense, parsing out supposed short comings of Guttmacher’s rebuttal, although not advancing his claims with any merit… i.e there is something wrong with those who criticize him. In short… the man is your typical prolife zealot, finding fault with those who do not agree with him for lack of any ability to support his claims. His defensive flurry is apparent here and here and here….:
http://www.frcblog.com/images/Guttmacher_Reponse_New7–ML%20edits%201219.pdf
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmVmY2NjYzdiNzc3ZGFmNjg2MWY3MGU5OWRiNmM3MWM=
https://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2008/12/guttmachers_sor.html#comments
To summarize, the scientific literature has not reached a consensus regarding whether or not parental involvement laws actually reduce abortion rates, and or whether or not that is necessarily a favorable result, because of the problem of teens going to other states. While Dr. New ridicules others for the invocation of interstate abortions, declaring that it is circular logic, he actually admits as much in his own research in which he points out that, in addition to omitting the most liberal states from his statistics, he also omitted Kansas from his statistics because 40% of the minors aborting were from out of state, grossly inflating Kansas’ abortion rate.
Anyhow… that’s it for now… and given the lethargic capacity for reality amongst prolifers, it may be awhile before this argument manifests, if at all, but if it does it will also be lethargic when it comes to evaporating into obscurity.
Thanks for reading… and merry Christmas…
Best,
Cameron
Posted by: Cameron at December 24, 2008 5:09 PM
Cameron
——————————————————–
Wow, my head hurts.
Zealots, whatever there particular bent, are unreliable as sources of empirical data.
Now, a liberal zealot or a humanist zealot are as oxymoronic to the political left as a ‘human embryo/fetus’.
So, Cameron,
When yo mama was pregos wit chu, wut class of embryo\fetus wuz chillin in her utero, bro?
yor bro ken
Nut jobs claiming science/logic… it’s just too irresistible… I had to look into this, and I actually put a lot of time into this, reading both Dr. New’s efforts, using google scholar to look at what the actual peer reviewed efforts say, and reading all the blogs spinning off from this. I think I’ve read about 400 pages worth science and commentary altogether, which is why my response to this is so belated. None the less, my summary is relatively brief.
Dr. New’s “research,” in its earliest manifestation, can be found here and this is where I started my own research:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/CDA07-01.cfm
Having examined New’s “research” before reading anyone else’s account of it, I find it humorously flawed in numerous respects, although I have not arrived at a conclusion counter to his. I am open to the possibility that prolife legislation may have had some impact, although I think it’s seriously foolish to identify it as the ultimate factor when there are so many unstudied factors (e.g. a precipitous decline in teen pregnancies over the same time period, co-occurring with the availability and the acceptability of teens using birth control pills).
Probably the most humorous aspect of New’s effort is that he illustrates a flaky grasp of statistics when he switches dependent variables, independent variables, and secondary corrections. Ostensibly, he first identifies abortion rates as his dependent variable in his methods section, but then identifies his independent variables (parental involvement laws) amongst his binary covariates (a covariate is a secondary correction for bias), and then in his appendix table of results he lists the independent variables as the dependent variables, in an incoherent table which bears no resemblance to those published in any peer reviewed journals and nor does he provide the requisite statistical values (e.g. P-value) such that others may judge the statistical power of the effort. His methods are a little vague, and one wonders if he inverted variables because they violate the assumptions of regression analysis, particularly independence and homoscedasity.
What is forehead-slappingly stupid about his effort is that he has not taken into account the rate of teen pregnancy. The rate of abortion is in fact dependent upon the rate of pregnancies more so than anything else. It’s stupid obvious! Additionally, he does not actually compare the rates of abortion, or pregnancies, between the states with parental involvement laws vs. the few states which have no such laws (6). If his conclusion is that parental involvement laws are way good… you’d think he’d arrive at that conclusion by comparing against states which have no laws. He didn’t do this.
Ironically, such a comparison probably would have had the appearance of advancing his case, as these few liberal states have very low teen pregnancy rates, and the countering conservative states are ranked highest for teen pregnancy, thus affecting an apparent abortion rate differential in favor of prolife legislations because a reciprocal trade off with the acceptability of abortions would likely be the case.
In short, I could do better job making a case for prolife legislation.
The scientific opposition to parental involvement, such as the peer reviewed publications of T. Joyce, produce similar indications of reduced abortion rates, however he cautions regarding causality and in fact investigates “misconception bias.” Additionally, researchers consistently find that there is also a net effect in which minors increasingly have more complicated and riskier abortions later in pregnancy, having had to arrange to go to other states and/or endure a court by-pass process which takes 22 days at best.
I have mixed feelings about parental notification laws. On one hand I’m thinking, yes, parents no doubt should at least be notified. On the other hand, I’m thinking they’re crappy parents if their 15 y.o. daughter somehow managed to get pregnant. What the hell were they doing? In my personal experience, the teens I knew personally who got pregnant had the most dysfunctional and useless parents amongst all my peers… buying minors booze if we packed a bowl of pot for them, and basically telling their off spring do what ever… just don’t get me involved. Of course, as a fellow teen at the time, I thought they were the coolest parents…playing Gin rummy with me to the we hours of the morning as we polished-off a gallon of tequila.
That’s my two cents. I’d like to hear Dr. New’s refutation, and I’ll E-mail my critique/questions to him directly. Maybe he’ll have the balls to pop in here and comment.
You guys may make me sick to my stomach with your sanctimonious smarmyness, but I do hope you all are stuffing face with turkey, and whooping it up with a virtual reunion of extended family. Please try to avoid proselytizing to your relatives.
Best, and Merry Christmas!!!
Cameron
Ooops.
I’ve double posted… LOL
Oh well, now you get the christmas tidings.
kbhvac,
If you want the President of your country to be a failure, than you’re a pretty crappy American IMO. :)
Sure, you can want this plan to not go through. That’s great. State your opinion. But to wish the President himself is a failure? To wish that for the whole country? Well, holy crap… dude, that’s not cool at all. A lot more people will be affected if Obama fails… but, I guess since they’re already alive they don’t matter..
Posted by: Josephine at December 28, 2008 8:07 PM
You need to go back and reread my post. I did not say I wanted the 0’bama (pbuh) to be a failure. I qualified it. I gave some examples where I was happy when Bush failed.
I only want the 0’bama (pbuh) to succeed when it benefits America and not as man defines ‘benefit’, but as GOD defines it.
In my opinion, the 0’bama (pbuh) is already a failure in many ways, but the final chapter of his life has not yet been written. That is when his successes and/or failures will be determined.
What real benefit is it to the 0’bama (pbuh),or Americans, if he achieves every goal he sets for himself, but he lies, cheats, steals and even kills to do it?
Is that really how you want to define success?
yor bro ken
What plans do you think Obama has where he’d need to steal, cheat, or kill? First of all, he’s the President.. his resources are endless. Why would he steal, exactly? Annnd, killing? Who does Obama plan to kill? Because… well, I think him being in office will mean less lives lost.
Now, let’s pretend he does say, steal and lie. If his plan is beneficial to Americans, why does it matter? I’m okay with success no matter how it happens. Obviously our country needs something.
BTW, I read your post and “They want Jill to be successful about as much as I want the 0’bama to be successful.” is exactly what you said. ;)